A not so brief Reminder
by fallfromreality
Summary: When Jane finds out a stunning truth her entire life is altered. Will she be able to find healing after everything she's been through? Or will it prove to be too much? Warning: brief mentions and allusions to sexual assault.
1. Chapter 1

Hello all my lovely readers,

Here I am with another freaking story! I must finish them all but new ideas just keep coming to me! So hopefully you guys enjoy this one!

Sincerely,

Fallen 3

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It had been almost six weeks since she escaped from that CIA, and she thought things had finally settled into their new normal. The team hated her, she doubted that would change, but she had a mission. She had a purpose and protection for the time being.

Even if that protection didn't last, she had the time to plan her escape. It didn't matter how things played out she would never go back there. Back to him. Never.

She'd die first.

Something she'd already calculated into the plan she'd been creating since day one.

But for now her biggest concern would be Sandstorm and taking them down with minimal losses. She wouldn't let the team get hurt by her actions again. Even if they did hate her, she would protect them. But Roman, Roman, had become an unexpected addition to her plans. She found she needed him on a level she couldn't explain or justify.

So, now she had to find a way to protect them all. She hoped she could convince Roman to stay with her after it all ended. She didn't know if she could lose him again after finding him.

All those thoughts were swirling around in her head as she walked down the corridor past Patterson's lab. They had just completed another case, and she'd been heading to her desk to start her paperwork when she overheard Patterson and Zapata talking.

"Ugh, Tasha, I'm having the worst cramps right now," Patterson groaned, "I just want to go home and lay on my bed with a heating pad and the newest season of Dr. Who."

Tasha laughed, "As cute as that sounds, we are going out tonight, so take some Midol and get it together."

Patterson must have responded but Jane had stopped paying attention when she realized exactly what they were talking about.

The realization struck her like lightning.

She hadn't had her period since she escaped from the CIA.

For as long as she could remember it came like clockwork. Even in the CIA it had come. They'd made her lay in her filthy stained clothing for days after the bleeding stopped. Just another way to degrade her. To make her feel less than human.

How long had it been since she'd escaped? Too long, her traitorous mind whispered to her, even as the rest of her rebelled against the very thought.

But her mind drew her back into the memories she'd buried further than any of the others. She felt his hands on her, touching her, hurting her in a way she didn't think possible. She could almost hear him whispering in her ear, and the choked sound he made when it was done.

The thick seedy smell of his colon threatened to choke her, and she felt her own hands coming up to her throat as if feeling for his. He liked to wrap them around her throat so tight she felt she might suffocate.

Sometimes she wished she had.

Bile rushed up her throat, and she turned, dashing to the bathroom making it into a stall in just enough time to empty her stomach into the toilet.

She didn't know how long she heaved, but by the time she stopped it had long since turned into dry painful movements. Nothing but saliva and the barest hint of stomach acid. She slumped against the stall wall, trying to breath as her mind did its best to process this new possibility.

She didn't want to think about it. She wanted to banish the very possibility to the furthest corner of her mind and pretend it away. But she'd never been afforded the luxury of ignorant bliss. She knew she had to know. So she steeled herself, taking a deep breath to center herself, and got ready to force herself to her feet when the bathroom door banged open.

"Do we really have to go out tonight?" Patterson's voice echoed across the bathroom, the whine in her tone almost grating to Jane as her head started to pound in response to the vomiting.

"Yes, Patterson, no backing out now," Zapata snarked, "Plus, we already told the others about it, and given how long it's been since we all got together I don't want to cancel. Who knows when we'll get another chance to do this."

"I guess you're right," Patterson replied, as the stall door besides her opened and she entered, "It has been a while since we've all gotten together."

"Are you sure we shouldn't invite Jane, though?" Patterson asked hesitantly, "I mean, she's really been trying and she is one of us."

Zapata practically spat her response, "Is she? Last I checked the only reason she's even here is because we need her to take down Sandstorm. None of us even want to look at her after what she's done. She'd only ruin the whole night for us."

Jane shouldn't be hurt by the statement. After all, she couldn't stand to look at herself either, why would they? But still, it hurt to have it put into words. It just further proved she had no one but herself. None of them would help her. She had to help herself. Just like she always had.

The toilet beside her flushed, and the stall door opened, the sink sounded, and they started to leave before Patterson replied, "I guess you're right, I just feel bad for her, any of us could have found ourselves in her shoes. She just looks so down."

"Whatever you say Patterson, you can talk to her on your own time," Zapata replied as the door closed and Jane was left alone again.

She waited almost ten full minutes before she exited the bathroom herself. She didn't need either of the two women to see her exiting the bathroom and think she had been spying on them.

Because that would be exactly where their minds would go. At least Zapata's and she just didn't need that right now.

She spent the rest of the day in a fog, her mind still flipping over every possibility. The inevitable what if's plaguing her until she felt sick. When Kurt finally announced they could leave for the day she nearly shot out of her seat. But she forced herself to calmly collect her things and head to the stairs. No reason to draw attention to herself.

She wouldn't give any of them a reason to question her actions further.

When she exited the building, she walked a full six blocks away from the FBI headquarters, her detail following at a respectable distance, before she ducked into a convenient store. She carefully obscured the pregnancy tests beneath three bags of chips.

She didn't need her detail reporting back that she'd bought them.

As soon as she checked out she walked into the bathroom, her pulse accelerating with each step she took.

The next six minutes were pure torture as she took three tests in a row. It wasn't until she stared down at the third pink plus sign that she accepted the truth.

She blinked back tears, and forced herself to breathe. This changed everything and nothing. She couldn't abandon her mission but her parameters had changed. She had to end this, and end it sooner than she'd ever planned. Then she had to get away. She needed to go so far that none of them would be able to find her.

Without it being a conscious thought she knew that she would keep her baby. She wouldn't kill another innocent, and she would protect it until her dying breath.

She thought briefly about telling the team. But she knew she couldn't. She knew exactly what Naz would demand she do, and she doubted the others would care enough to stop her. She wouldn't abort her baby. But if she told them she might not have a choice.

No, she would have to do this alone.

She forced herself to take another breath before walking out of the bathroom with her head held high. By the time she got back to her apartment she had the beginnings of a new plan. The old one scrapped, no longer acceptable with this new variant.

First, she needed to research, because she knew nothing absolutely nothing about pregnancy. But she had to find a way to do it without the others being able to track her searches.

Then she had to accelerate her timeline with Sandstorm, she'd have to do whatever it took to prove her loyalty and gain access to their plans.

She would make herself unstoppable.

Her hand brushed against her abdomen, and she gave a silent promise to the life growing inside her. None of the horrors that had existed in her life would touch her child. They would have the life that Jane should have had.

Jane would make sure of that.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey all!

I'm so glad that you guys loved the first chapter! And thank you so very very very much to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and followed! You guys give me life and inspire me to keep writing!

I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and feel free to tell me what you're thinking! J

Love,

Fallen

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She awoke gasping for breath, her hands wrapped tightly around her abdomen as if she could shelter the life inside her from the horrors her mind conjured. She wished suddenly that she had some way to know if the baby, her baby, was alright.

In her dreams he'd come and cut it out of her. All the while she screamed and begged, the team looking on emotionlessly. Towering over her like gargoyles as they observed her terror.

She could still feel the sticky wetness of the blood covering her body, and feel the cut of the knife.

She didn't know how long it took before she felt her pulse slow and her breathing begin to return to normal. But it felt like too long.

She knew her nightly terrors couldn't be good for the baby, but at the same time she knew her baby had to be a hundred times stronger than her to have survived all it had in such a short time. Hell she'd been shot by Zapata, beaten, and she knew she hadn't eaten nearly enough in all the time she'd been back. Yet her baby had survived.

She just had to hope that she hadn't messed up too badly.

She forced one of her hands away to wipe her brow, the sweat pouring down her temple had pasted her hair to her forehead. She ignored the way her hand trembled as she brought it back down to hug her abdomen one more time.

Then she stole a glance at the clock, feeling a brush of anger when she realized she'd only been asleep for two precious hours. At a minimum she had six hours to get up if she wanted to beat Kurt into the office as usual but at the most she could squeeze almost seven out if she tried. She knew she needed more sleep to help the baby grow strong and healthy, the least she could do given all the things she would put it through before the end.

But still she dreaded closing her eyes again. The fear of what she would see when all the demons she kept so carefully caged inside her mind had free reign kept her awake and alert.

She just wished her mind could understand how desperately she needed to sleep.

One of the many things she needed to work on, to be better at, for her child. Eating would be number two on that list, she knew she forgot to eat more often than not since being back. A product of the starvation diet they'd put her through at the CIA, she no longer felt hunger, not like she used to. Instead food tended to repel her, the mere thought making her nauseous.

But she could no longer afford to indulge herself. Her child came first. She'd accepted that.

She'd also worried about her current activity level, her rigorous training sessions and the brutality she faced in the field. But after researching last night, she found that the general consensus to be that a pregnant woman would be fine to maintain the activity level she had pre-pregnancy for the first five to six months of pregnancy. She just shouldn't add new things to her regime, and she should avoid overworking her body as much as possible. But they said right now her body was built to protect her baby and would do so to the best of its ability.

So all she could do would be to continue to train to reduce the possibility of injury as much as possible.

She ran herself through her checklist for the following day, first to go to work and talk with Patterson about some of her thoughts for accelerating her sandstorm take down timeline, then to speak with Naz about ideas more in her field, and then to find a way to communicate with Roman. She knew he would be crucial to her takedown. Whether as someone she flipped to their side or merely as someone who would be on her side, it didn't matter.

She needed him.

After work, she needed to stop by the grocery store and buy real food. She'd already looked up all the foods she should be eating, as well as all the possible over the counter vitamins and supplements she should take. Since she had no chance of getting into a doctor she could only go off what would be available at the local CVS.

She also wanted to pick up some of the lotions, and oils that other pregnant women had talked about on some of the forums she'd read.

And though she'd been lucky so far with having no morning sickness or other symptoms typically associated with pregnancy she wanted to pick up some anti-nausea meds and other things like that.

She knew she would have to be discrete but if worse came to worse she'd ditch her detail for a few hours. As much as she'd grown to like them, it wouldn't be too hard, but she hoped to simply be able to lose some of the more oblivious items within the mass of items she'd be purchasing.

She felt herself relaxing as she ran through the list, though being pregnant scared her and brought up so many things she'd done her best to forget, it also gave her hope. Gave her a reason to look to the future as if she had one.

In a sick way she almost, almost felt thankful it had happened.

In truth, she knew beyond a doubt that she would never be normal again, her experiences with the CIA, and the bits of her past she remembered told her that she'd never really had a chance. The scars on her body were another reminder that there would be no going back for her.

She was messed up. No denying it.

But she knew she would love her baby like no one else. Already she knew in her heart that she loved the life growing in her. She just hoped that love would give her the strength not only to fight sandstorm, not only to fight her team, but to fight for herself. The strength to heal herself, to face her demons and learn to live with them.

Because she knew with a clarity she hadn't had in months, maybe even years, that they were killing her. Day by day she let them win and day by day they took another piece of her away with them into the darkness. And she'd let them.

She sighed, glancing at the clock again before forcing herself to put her head back down. All the thoughts swirling in her head had distanced the nightmare enough that she thought she might have a chance at getting back to sleep.

She closed her eyes and tried to picture what her baby would look like. Wondering distantly if it would be a little girl or a little boy. She didn't care, only wanted them to be healthy and whole. But her mind showed a little girl, hair as dark as her own, and eyes the same gem stone green.

She almost felt as if she could reach out and stroke one cubby cheek.

She let the image carry her away as she fell into a restless sleep.

This time she woke to the blaring of her alarm clock, and she felt marginally more rested than she had before. Thankfully the rest of her night had been free of nightmares, instead she dreamed of sitting in a field, watching a child play in the distance, laughter ringing in the field around her. It felt almost peaceful, despite the way the ground trembled, and her heart raced at random intervals fear gripping her but never truly taking hold of her.

She forced herself to get up, whispering a good morning to her baby as she walked into the bathroom to shower. As always she refused to strip until she'd gotten into the shower, the only way she guaranteed that she didn't have to look at her wasted body in the mirror.

She didn't doubt Dr. Borden would have a lot to say to her if she were to confide her ritual to him. But then again, she knew she'd have a lot to say if she were to tell him even a quarter of the thoughts and actions that plagued her since her return.

Instead she simply sat in silence during their session, watching the clock count down until their hour had finished.

It gave her the smallest amount of power over something in her life.

But now she'd have to give that up and start to open up to the good doctor. Her child deserved a mother who tried to heal not one who clung to her wounds like a lover.

Soon after she forced herself out of the shower, and got on with her morning. Shoving her body into clothing, running a brush through her locks, and then racing to get out of the house. Though she still had plenty of time before she'd be late, her internal clock told her she'd fallen far behind her normal time line.

She'd found that keeping her own rituals helped her stay sane.

One part of that had become beating Kurt and the team to the office. Just one way to avoid having to deal with their unrelenting anger. If she already sat at her desk in the shadows of the far corner they need not see her or speak to her until their latest case began.

Plus it gave her time to get her work done in peace, and quiet before the office began to bustle with people streaming in and out.

So she barely said a word to her detail as she got into her car and sped towards the FBI building. She knew they wouldn't lose her and if they did they knew where to find her.

She hadn't had a chance to grab breakfast, but for the first time she'd ask one of the members of her detail to grab her something when they arrived to the office. They were allowed to do things like that for her, but she had gone out of her way not to make them. She didn't like feeling like they were her servant, they were just doing their jobs and she did her best to respect that.

But this once she felt she could make an exception.

Especially since tonight she'd be stocking up on plenty of on the go breakfast items to prevent a situation like this from occurring again.

By the time she pulled into the FBI parking lot, she felt confident enough to ask Brian, one of her original detail members, to stop by the cafeteria to pick her up breakfast as they walked towards the stairs.

To her surprise he smiled at her, "Of course ma'am, I'd be happy to and we can do that for you anytime." He didn't say it but she thought for a second she saw concern flash across his features. Maybe her eating patterns or lack thereof hadn't gone as unnoticed as she thought.

"Thank you," She told him sincerely, as he detoured to the elevators while the other three followed her up the stairs. She considered the fifteen flight walk part of her morning exercise routine, and since she hadn't gotten a chance to do her normal morning workout she didn't feel too guilty for it.

Though on normal days she would do her best to take the elevator, even if the thought sent her heart racing and made her palms sweat.

Tight, confined spaces hadn't been her friends in sometime.

When she reached her floor, she carefully opened the door, taking a peak to see if any of the other had arrived yet. Thankfully the floor remained empty, so she walked to her desk, waving goodbye to the three present members of her detail.

They tended to disappear while she was in the building. To where she didn't quite know, and she suddenly felt bad that she'd never asked. Maybe on the way in tomorrow.

Until then, she started to check her email while she ran through her checklist for the day one more time. First she needed to talk with Patterson, she could only hope that they didn't have a case so that she could get the woman alone for a little bit.

Naz would be much easier, her own drive to takedown sandstorm would overtake any questions she might have about Jane's sudden motivation to decrease their timeline.

Roman wouldn't be a problem she could tackle today, but her conversations with Naz and Patterson would help her deal with him.

After she organized her thoughts, and cleared out all the emails she let herself get absorbed in the process of paperwork. She'd fallen behind juggling regular FBI work, with her undercover work and had almost three cases worth of paperwork to get done. Suffice to say she had plenty to keep her busy while the rest of the building came alive.

She'd gotten so absorbed in her work that she hardly noticed people streaming in. As always she noted them, and where they were but she didn't give them too much active brain power for once. The next two hours passed quickly as she filled out the seemly endless amount of paperwork required for their case load.

At about the one hour mark she'd noted Kurt and Naz coming in, together, something she'd noticed had happened a few times in the past week. She tried her best not to think about the man she love-once loved sleeping with the woman who did her best to create suicide missions for her each week. But in the part of her mind she tended to ignore more often than not, she knew it hurt, and it hurt a lot.

About thirty minutes later Reade, Zapata and Patterson strolled in within a few minutes of each other. They all stopped by to talk to each other as they sipped coffee, she forced herself to focus harder on the paperwork in front of her as they laughed and smiled at each other.

Aside from her detail today, she couldn't think of the last time someone in the office had smiled at her. Must have been before.

By the time she finished the last of it, Patterson had retreated to her lab and the others were at their desks or in their offices. She knew now would be the prime time to strike, because if they remained caseless, the others would find ways to work with each other. Or start trying to solve more tattoo cases, but she didn't want a group activity. She needed her targets alone.

Quietly, she stood from her desk and slunk around the others to inch her way into the lab. Thankfully none of them looked up from their computers so she felt safe as she finally crossed the threshold into the lab.

She took a second to observe Patterson in her element, letting the ghost of a smile cross her lips, something about the woman always made things feel a little lighter. She often wondered if the woman just exuded such a natural exuberance for everything around her that it became contagious. Like a disease, but a good one.

"Patterson?" She greeted cautiously, when she'd first come to the FBI she'd startled the scientist so many times she'd threated to put a bell on her. So she tried her best to avoid doing so when she could.

Still Patterson's eyes shot up, and her hand ended up on her chest, even as she gave Jane a soft smile, "Jane, I didn't see you there, is there a case? Or a new development with Sandstorm?"

Jane forced herself to return the smile, "No actually, I mean this does relate to Sandstorm but I just wanted to borrow your expertise. I'm trying to find a way to accelerate our timeline, because I agree with Naz. I think something big's coming and sooner than we might have thought before." It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either. Something told her that, Remi, her alter-ego had a lot of practice with these sorts of things.

"Okay, how can I help?" Patterson asked, gesturing for Jane to come follow as she moved to sit down at her desk.

"Well, I had a few things to ask about really, but first I wanted to ask about possibly modifying the bug that Naz put on me when I first went to meet Shepard. She had said it would be undetectable until it was activated, so I wondered if we could modify it to have a longer wait time, and if it were possible to make it so that you could remotely turn it on or off. Something I could place in strategic locations in their compound and then we could utilize as I learn more about their schedules. If that makes sense?"

Patterson started to get her thinking face on almost as soon as Jane started speaking, and by the end Jane could tell her brain had already started working out all the possible ways to achieve what Jane spoke about.

"I think I might have some ideas, but it might take some time for me to workout kinks. But with Naz giving me access to so much information I'll have a good base," Patterson trailed off, moving to grab one of her tablets off the table.

"You did say there were a few others things?" She asked, refocusing on Jane, even as her fingers started moving across the screen."

Jane nodded, "I also wanted to see if Naz and you would be able to put some people to work on a tracker for me? Shepard is still having Roman scan me before every mission but if you give me enough time I think I can gain their trust enough for that to stop. But, if we could find a way to keep the tracker turned off until I'm actually in route that would be even quicker."

Patterson nodded, but before she could reply Jane told her the other two things that were on her mind. By the end of the conversation Jane could tell that she'd put quite a few ideas into Patterson's mind, and the woman had retreated into herself as she thought.

Jane gave a whispered goodbye, as she exited the lab, leaving the blonde to her thoughts. She'd learned long ago how Patterson worked best, and right now she needed to be left alone to stew.

"Well one thing checked off the list," She muttered to herself, as she did a quick survey of her surrounding before heading towards the nock conference room that Naz tended to hide away in. She knew the woman would be there, and she knew that she'd be interested in what she had to say.

She knocked on the conference room door before pushing it open, "Naz?"

The raven haired woman looked up from the files thrown across the tablet, pulling an earbud out of her ear as she looked up, "Jane? What can I do for you? Has there been a development?"

Jane shook her head, "No, not really, but I did want to talk to you about Sandstorm. I want to do more, I want to bring them down now not six months from now. I think they're planning something big, something that's going to be happening sooner rather than later and I think you agree with me."

With Naz she didn't need to beat around the bush, they wanted the same thing, and she knew Naz would do anything to achieve her goal. Absolutely anything.

Under different circumstances that might alarm her but now she would use that.

Naz nodded, "I do agree, but I have to ask what made you move on this? You've always seemed a little distant from the whole thing."

Jane again utilized Remi's skills, "I guess I just started to think about all the things they've done wrong, and all the people they've hurt. I want to stop them, because I don't want to be like them anymore."

A little lie, a little truth. After a while they kind of blended together.

Naz just nodded again, "Okay, what were you thinking?"

Jane didn't mince her words, she told Naz exactly what she wanted to do, and what she knew she'd have to do to achieve it. By the end Naz sat in her seat just a little straighter, Jane could tell she had her convinced.

"So, what exactly do you need from me to make this happen? Aside from the oblivious?" Naz asked.

Finally, what Jane really wanted to get at, "First, you need to give Patterson access to everything, and I mean everything. She'll be the one to help us implement some of the key parts of this, and I think we need to keep looking into the tattoo cases. I think more clues lie within those than we thought before, and I think Sandstorms bigger picture can be found in the pieces of the cases we've solved and the ones left."

Jane could tell Naz would agree to those, so she went in for the things _she_ wanted to do the things she'd have to do, "Then when this is all over, I want official documents, I want to be a legally recognized person, I want the price for Shepard's head and full immunity for Roman and myself."

Naz hesitated, "That's a lot Jane, and not something I can just do-"

"But it is, and you know it. I'm going to be doing things, things that will put me at risk, physically, mentally and legally, in order to gain Sandstorms trust back. In order to take them down, and what I'm asking for when you consider everything you all have asked of me is nothing."

She could tell Naz wanted to argue but then she saw her nod her head, "Some of those things will take time, but I'll make it happen."

Jane shook her head, "No I want it in writing or I'm out and I'll disappear so fast and hard you'll never find me." An empty threat, but one she knew Naz believed. After all she'd escaped from a CIA black site starved, beaten, and after three months of torture entirely by herself.

"Okay, if you'll do what you said you're going to I'll get the documentation to you by the end of the day." Naz looked like she wanted to say more but the door opened.

Kurt walked in, "Naz, there you-Oh Jane, what are you doing here?"

As soon as he saw her his entire demeanor changed, and Jane had to fight the instinct to take a step back. Or worse, to strike out in defense for the attack that awaited in his eyes.

"I just wanted to go over a few details about yesterday's case with her, but I think we were just finishing up, weren't we Jane?" Naz asked, flashing Kurt a smile and leaning in to touch his arms forcing him to look at her.

Jane nodded, "M-hm." When Kurt didn't immediately say something she took her chance and escaped. When she glanced at her watch she saw that lunch had come and gone. Thankfully Brian had brought her some extra food at breakfast. So she'd have something to eat.

She stopped at the bathroom, and then made her way to her desk, again doing her best to avoid the notice of the others agents in the room.

She managed to avoid contact, and so she sat at her desk pulling out her food to eat while she worked on some miscellaneous assignments she needed to get done.

She spent the rest of the work day like that, and aside from Kurt's eyes drilling holes in the back of her head for about thirty minutes after he finishing "meeting" with Naz nothing out of the ordinary happened.

When they were dismissed she waited until her detail appeared, and they left the building together. She made sure to tell the four men that she intended to stop at the grocery store and the pharmacy.

This time she knew she didn't miss the relief on their faces, especially the three who had been with her since the beginning Brian, Matt and Luke.

She had no idea that grocery shopping would take so much out of her though, nor that it would be so confusing. The fact that she'd been living almost entirely on takeout and protein bars had never been more apparent.

Almost two hours later she left the grocery store with enough bags that she needed all four men in her detail to carry six or seven bags in addition to what had been in her cart initially. Who knew getting health would be so expensive and heavy?

Then they headed to the pharmacy. Jane specifically chose one out of the way from the rather centralized location of the FBI headquarters and the majority of team's apartments. She didn't want to chance running into any of them during this trip. The detail would at least hang back, and probably wouldn't be able to read most of the labels on what she purchased.

She didn't want to chance having to explain folic acid, and other prenatal vitamins to anyone.

So imagine her surprise when someone called her name just as she picked up her first bottle of folic acid.

She turned, throwing the vitamin into the cart with the other odds and ends she picked up.

"Allie?" She questioned, she hadn't seen the woman since the case they'd worked together almost two weeks ago.

"I thought it was you Jane, how are you?" As Allie drew closer smiling at Jane as if they were old friends, Jane realized that she might be the only person who could look in her cart and immediately put together why she'd purchased all these things. Being that she herself happened to be pregnant.

Her heart started pounding and she could feel sweat beading on her brow.

Still she had to be normal, "I'm doing great, things have been good at work, and I'm really getting back into the swing of things. How are you? How are things with the baby?" After she'd gotten word that Allie and the baby were fine she hadn't ever taken any time to actually ask the woman how she'd been doing. Given how nice Allie had been to her, that might have been a missed opportunity, and now it would be dangerous for her to get too close.

Allie would after all pick up on things that the others might not.

"I'm glad to hear that, things have been good on my end, I got out of the hospital last week and I've been trying to take it easy since. But I had to have some mint Choco chip ice cream and no one seemed to be around to get it for me. Speaking of, the little hellion is doing great, we just had an appointment yesterday and everything checked out. Back to you though, I have to ask, has the team been warming up to you? I know things were still rough between you all but I guess I hoped that might have changed." Allie asked as she finally reached Jane's side, and Jane noticed that the swell of her belly seemed much more oblivious than before.

Jane forced herself to laugh with Allie when she mentioned her cravings, but when she asked about the team her mood dropped.

But still Allie might report anything she said back to Kurt, whether intentionally or off-handedly Jane could risk it, "Things are fine, something just take time, I'm not trying to rush it."

Jane could tell Allie would be happy to sit in the middle of the isle all day and chit chat, so before she could say anything she took charge, "But as much as I'd like to chat, I have to check out and get out of here. If I don't leave now I'm going to be late for an appointment. But it was great to see you, I'm so glad that you and the baby are okay."

She started to push her cart away from the woman and towards the front before she felt a hand on her shoulder she only just suppressed a flinch at the unexpected contact. Allie must have seen it anyway, "I'm sorry Jane, didn't mean to startle you, but it really is great to see you. Maybe we could get coffee sometime? I could use someone to talk to who isn't a man."

Against her better judgement, she found herself agreeing, "Okay, get my number from Kurt and we can set something up." With that she gave Allie one more goodbye and practically raced to the front.

It wasn't until she sat in her car, with the doors locked that her pulse finally slowed. She had thought for sure she'd be safe there but apparently she just couldn't catch a break. Thank god Allie had been paying more attention to her than her cart.

She didn't need Kurt or anyone else knowing that Allie wasn't the only pregnant person in his vicinity.

By the time she finally got home, and got everything unloaded the sun had long since set. Thankfully she'd ordered something for delivery on her way home. A salad, and a chicken sandwich. Despite her craving for spicy Thai she went for something healthy.

By the time she settled into bed, she felt relieved but also exhausted. However the real work would begin the next time she got called into Sandstorm.

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I tried to give you guys some details about Jane's plans but I didn't want to give it all away! Hope you don't hate me! I promise you all will become clear before the end!

Thank you for reading and I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

Lots and lots of love,

Fallen


	3. Chapter 3

Holy Hell guys, this may be the single longest chapter for any story I've ever written! I do hope it is worth the wait!

FAIR WARNING, I am taking some of the material from the show and bending it slightly to align more closely to my own story! So please, do not point out to me areas that do not perfectly match up with things from the show. None of you have done this before, but this particular chapter is very closely aligned with the show, I even tried to use dialogue from the episode to make this as close as I could possibly while still maintain the integrity of my own story!

I promise you all the changes are necessary for the plot of my story, as the show and I are only going to veer further and further away from each other as this story continues.

But aside from that little PSA, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and I promise to have more for you soon!

Also! Thank you again for all your support, and I truly love each and every one of you who comments, favorites, and follows! You guys are my knights in shining armor! I truly wouldn't be the same without your support!

LOVE LOVE LOVE,

Fallen

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She gets the text on a Saturday, the first Saturday the team hadn't had a case since she'd gotten back from the CIA.

 _1430_ _40.5462° N, 74.1238° W_

She checks the clock on the wall across from her, she had just over three hours until she needed to be at the meeting place. She typed the coordinates into her phone, and googled them, pulling up maps when it loaded. Looks like it would be almost a two hour drive from her safe house with traffic.

That meant she had just enough time to get dressed, grab something to eat out of the fridge and get onto the road. She shot Naz and Kurt a quick text to let them know that she'd been called out, and asked Kurt to get rid of her detail. He'd make sure they weren't following her.

With that done, she got up, got dressed, and headed downstairs. Thankfully, she'd started to meal prep, she'd read somewhere that it was supposed to help. So, far she'd found the actual process tedious at best but the results were admittedly pretty good. It had definitely saved her from eating out of the venting machine more than once this week.

Though her first few attempts at cooking had been…interesting to say the least, she'd finally found a few recipes that were both good for her, and easy to make. Plus, Brian had casually slipped her a cookbook for dummy's two days after the grocery run. Probably heard her violent cursing after the fourth failed attempt at cooking and nearly successful attempt at burning her safe-house to the ground.

The cookbook had changed her life for sure.

She grabbed a pre-made chicken pesto sandwich, a pickle, and a pack of peanut butter crackers, along with a few bottles of water before she made her way out of her apartment. Kurt must have worked fast, because the SUV the boys in her detail usually sat in were no longer parked on her street. She knew she couldn't afford attachments, but they had really started to grow on her. She almost wished she could bring them with her when she broke free from all this. She imagined they might be friends if circumstances were different.

But they weren't, so she got into her car and forced herself to forget those thoughts. Dreams wouldn't help her, they never had.

She got her GPS going, and started her journey. Traffic added an additional twenty minutes to her drive, but gave her plenty of time to eat without feeling as if she'd turned into a drunk driver. So by the time she arrived at the coordinates Roman had given her, she only had about twenty minutes until the meet time. Unlike the nearly forty she'd hoped to have.

She found that arriving early helped her refocus, and enabled her to remember why she'd come. And what she had to lose if she failed in her mission.

She popped open the peanut butter crackers, and ate them while she waited her. Her free hand coming down to stroke her stomach as she hummed a song she didn't recognize. She waited for a memory to follow the tune, but instead she simply felt a wave of calm brush over her. Whatever it was it must have come from the time before Jane, before Sandstorm, before Remi, the time where she'd been a little girl named Alice. With all the possibilities in the world open to her.

She wanted her baby to wake up every morning with possibilities.

She never wanted her to know what it felt like to trapped, caged by her own reality. Never wanted her baby to know the touch of a fist, or the biting pain of a bullet. She wanted her to know what it felt like to be hugged every day, and touched with love. To never know what it felt like to wake up and realize they were alone in the world.

She's just finished the last cracker, when a knock on her window startled her out of her thoughts.

"You should be more careful, I could have been anyone," Roman told her as she got out of her car. Though his voice sounded hard, she saw the way his eyes swept up her form as if he were checking for injuries. Some explanation for why she'd been so out of it.

"I'm sorry, just have a lot on my mind," She told him with a slight smirk, "So are you going to tell me what the mission is? Or do I have to wait till we get there?"

He just rolled his eyes, and gestured to the car park behind her own, "Get in, I'll explain on the way."

She nodded, following behind him, "This mean I don't have to ride in the trunk this time?"

He just got into the car without commenting, she took that as answer enough and got into the passenger side. This would be the first time since he'd picked her up after Zapata shot her that she'd ridden in the car with him like a normal person instead of a kidnap victim.

He started the car, and took them in the opposite direction from where she'd come. Almost thirty minutes passed in comfortable silence before he finally spoke.

"We're going to retrieve a chip, Shepard says its vital to stage two, we can't afford mistakes," He looked directly at her when he said it, as if she needed a reminder of her failure to act on her last important mission.

"Are you going to be able to handle it?"

She glared, "I'm ready to do whatever it takes, and I won't let you down a second time." She wanted to tell him the truth so bad, wanted to try to win him to her side with honesty instead of the half-assed deceit. But she knew it wasn't the time yet, she needed him to trust her more than he did now. Needed him to remember that she'd been there for him before any of this.

"I know you won't," Worst of all, he sounded as if he believed it. Amazing that the only person who truly believed in her is the same person they told her would never be more than an enemy.

But even if she didn't sway him, Naz had given her the signed and sealed documents granting both of them immunity when this was over. All she had to do was hand her Shepard's head on a silver platter.

"What's the chip for?" She couldn't help but ask.

Roman's hands tightened on the wheel, but he eventually replied, "We don't ask questions, we just do what we're told."

Jane nodded, "Okay, do we at least know how well protected this thing is?"

Roman nodded, "It's a federal building, we have badges to get us into the door, but from there we'll have a trained team of security guards to get through as well as an advanced security system. The chip is held in an access restricted room near the middle of the building. It's vital we get the chip and get out."

"Are we trying to do this quietly?"

Roman turned to look at her, his eyes dark, "We do what we have to do to get the chip, if that means burning the building to the ground we do it. If it means we walk out without touching a hair on their heads we do it. It just has to get done."

Jane could only nod, "Okay."

Roman gestured to the back, "Weapons are back there, as well as a suit for you, and our badges."

"How did you get my measurements?" She asked, reaching into the back to grab the garment bag. She'd noticed Roman's suit earlier but hadn't questioned it. Too many other things to worry about.

"Shepard has all our details on file, for mission exactly like this, where does your team think you are right now?"

She thought that was a little weird, but then again Shepard seemed to be a bit of a control freak, "We didn't have any active cases today, so we were given a free day. As far as they're concerned I'm sitting in my safe house watching TV. I learned how to slip out without my detail knowing just a few days after I crawled out of that bag in Times Square."

She thought Roman looked pleased by that, "Good, Shepard will be pleased to hear that, make sure to memorize your covers name. We're inspectors, there to tour the facility."

"This isn't my first time undercover," she told him trying to keep things light, I mean her whole life's basically an undercover job. Surely he recognized that.

It seemed he did, because his cheeks colored ever so slightly and his eyes crinkled as if he were smiling.

He looked as if he might say something back but instead he only sent her a small smile. She hated how much such a small gesture filled her with happiness. People rarely smiled at her anymore.

After that they spent the rest of the trip in quiet, though she did have to hop in the back about thirty minutes before they arrived to change into her outfit. It would have been more awkward if it weren't for the fact that she knew they'd trained, fought, and bleed together since they were children. Though in just a few more weeks she wouldn't be able to change in front of him without questions.

For now though she didn't have to worry about it.

Finally they pulled up in front of an undescriptive concrete building with a half empty parking lot, "Most of the day time employees should be off for the weekend, it will be a skeletal crew and the security." Roman told her as they got out of the car and walked towards the door.

At least that decreased her chances of having to kill an entirely unarmed civilian. If they were at least shooting at her, she would be able to justify more blood on her hands just a little easier.

She nodded, and walked besides him, her brief case carrying spare weapons, his loaded with explosives and weapons.

They were stopped by the guard on their way, in Jane saw Roman go for his gun but she gave him a look and gave the guard their story. He bought it, which bought them more time before the alarm system got triggered by their presence. But he made them wait for an escort, something that clearly ticked Roman off. Great.

But this got them into the building without guns pointed in their faces. So she'd have to make up for it later.

Now to see if she could ditch Barbara without causing a problem. She explained to the woman that they were inspectors, and would need to have access to the full building. At first it didn't appear to be a problem, but after they'd gotten a decent way into the building, they stopped at one of the offices, and Barbara made it clear she'd need more identification before they could go beyond that point.

Well it'd been good while it lasted.

When Barbara turned away, Jane grabbed her head and twisted. She hated how natural it felt to snap the woman's neck, but she'd spared the guard. She could only be so kind when she needed Shepard to trust her.

"Well, at least we got close," She told Roman as she tugged the woman's body into the corner and shoved her under one of the desks. She silently apologized to the woman, nobody deserved to be treated like this, dead or alive. But she couldn't allow herself to dwell, what's done is done. So she grabbed her ID badge, and held it up, "looks like we'll be able to get into that room now."

Roman nodded at her, but he said nothing, simply slipped out of his suit jacket, and placed his gun in closer reach. Then he nodded to the door.

Jane followed him as he re-entered the corridor and navigated them through the maze of hallways to the room he'd been looking for.

"Remember the chip comes first, when the alarm goes off you're only priority is getting out of here with the chip," Roman told her as she scanned the stolen badge to get them into the room.

She followed him through the door as she asked, "Why do you make it sound like we're not getting out of here together."

"I don't plan to die, but I'm prepared to. Winning this war is worth more than one soldier." He told her, his voice empty, and his eyes cold. What had Shepard done to him? The boy she remembered had always been so much better than her. She never should have left him with that woman.

"Do you really believe that? That your life doesn't matter?" She asked him as they searched the room for the chip, "You're willing to die for Shephard? Or maybe you just like killing for her." She couldn't make herself stop, she wanted to shake him.

"I don't like killing," He shot back, abandoning the search to get in her face.

She wasn't scared, she knew he would never hurt her, "Then it's your first instinct, the lobby guard's gun, the letter opener, Jeffrey Kantor. When we first met you killed six cops."

"That's not when we first met," He shot back at her, his stare burning into her with all the intensity of a wild fire, "We have a whole life together that you chose to erase! I see the way you look at me. You think I'm a sociopath. Well, if I am, it's because you…you taught me how! And when you left, Shepard finished the job."

She couldn't find the words to say what she wanted to say because she knew deep in her heart that he was right. To survive she didn't doubt that sweet, sweet Ian had to become a monster. She also knew that from the little she remembered of Remi, she'd done what she had to in order to survive. Though just like she knew from her few interactions with Roman, somewhere inside Remi she had wanted something more for herself.

"I'm sorry," She whispered, "If I had known-"

"You did," He barked.

"Then if I could go back, do it differently, I never would have left you there," She pleaded, bringing one of her hands up to cup his cheek. Her heart burned at the thought of him alone, and unprotected. Somehow she knew that she'd always been the one to keep him safe. To keep him sane.

For a second he leaned into the touch, "What do you mean?"

But before she could say anything, the alarms started blaring, "They must have found Barbara's body. We're out of time." She told him, looking at the computer behind him that had the security cam footage pulled up.

"They're coming right for us, their sealing all the security doors, they're trapping us in here" She told him, pointing at the small army of men racing towards their location.

"I'll handle them, stay with the codebreaker, get the microchip and then get out of here."

"Roman, wait, what about you?"

He just shook his head and pointed at the chip before he walked out to meet them.

As soon as the doors closed behind him she was on the phone with Patterson explaining the situation. They needed to know what was on that chip, and needed to know now.

"Hurry," she begged as she watched on the security camera footage as Roman tried to fight the men. Maybe something she'd said had sunk in because he hadn't taken any of the easy kill shots he had and now he was paying for it.

She couldn't watch her brother die, she couldn't.

"Patterson please, why is this taking so long?"

As she watched she had a flashback to how Roman had gotten his scar. Suddenly all she could see is her baby brother being wrestled to the floor, screaming and crying for her to save him. God, how many times had she failed him? Then she pictures her own child, so small and vulnerable, begging for her to save them.

She couldn't take it.

She hung up on Patterson, grabbed the chip, and stormed out to save him. She would do what she should have done before this all started. She was going to save her brother.

Somewhere along the way she'd pulled out her gun, and she shot the man on top of him point blank. She didn't know why, but she couldn't let him live. In her mind he wasn't any better than the boys who'd held her brother down all those years ago. Maybe something in her snapped.

The others she dispatched quickly, with brutal punches and kicked until they lay unconscious around her brother's prone form. She knew more were coming, so she turned and shot out the security panel on the exit. They wouldn't be able to get into the hallway without breaking down the doors, which would take more than a few minutes.

"What are you doing?" Roman practically shouted at her as he pushed himself up off the floor.

"Saving your life, what did it look like?" She didn't want to shout at him, but what did he want from her. He honestly didn't expect her to leave him there to be arrested or murdered. Did he?

"That was our only way out," When she only stared at him, he rolled his eyes, "Where's the chip?"

She pulled it out of her pocket and handed it to him, "Here."

"You should have taken this and gotten out while you had the chance. Thousands of people are going to die before the end of this, one more wouldn't have mattered." He sounded so apathetic. She felt tears welling up in her eyes but she forced them away.

"It would have mattered to me," She wanted him to understand how much he meant to her. How even now, with only a handful of memories, he was the most important person in her life. Aside from her baby, maybe the only person _in this world_ keeping her in it.

He ignored her comment, and continued as if she hadn't said anything, "I'm a little turned around, but one of these walls leads to a hallway out of this place, the other just leads further in. I have enough explosive material for one bomb."

"Well, which side do you think it is?" She wanted to say left, but honestly she had no clue which would be right.

"Right." He didn't wait for her to agree with him, he just started setting the charge. Within a minute he had the whole thing rigged and ready to go. HE grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the blast radius, then he set it off.

"Well looks like todays our lucky day," He muttered, pulling her with him through the hole.

Jane grabbed two lab coats as they walked, "Put this on, we can blend in with the others and get out without running into any more security."

He nodded and put it on without complaint, they made it out of the empty corridor and merged with a group of people as they exited the building. Thankfully no one questioned them or their presence, and they were able to make it out of the building without further trouble.

When they finally got the car, she couldn't help but let out of a sigh of relief, "Well it could have gone worse." She tried to joke, but Roman said nothing as he drove them away from the building. His silence only gave her time to stew over her own actions, she'd killed two people, and she knew it would only be the beginning.

Shepard seemed to want her loyalty won with blood, sweat, and tears.

Jane would give that to in spades. Anything to ensure that when she brought this child into the world, none of its darkness ever had to touch her.

She almost brought her hand up to touch her stomach, but Roman sighed, reminding her that she couldn't afford to give in to such motherly impulses. She wanted to tell him, but she knew she couldn't. Not yet. Maybe not until after she'd brought sandstorm down around him, and put their mother behind bars.

Maybe she'd be able to make him understand, if he knew he would soon be an Uncle. Or maybe he'd turn on her and report her to Shepard. Who she knew, without a doubt, would want her to terminate the pregnancy. Just like Naz.

Amazing how the two sides really weren't that different.

Both expected her to do their bidding, no matter the cost, no matter what it put her through. She couldn't believe it had taken the CIA to show her that she'd never been anything but a tool to either side. Both sides had let her in, given her love, let her have a taste of what a family might be like but at the first sign of trouble they'd both taken it away without a second thought.

Only Roman had loved her throughout. Even if it had hurt him, and hurt him it had. She still couldn't fathom that Remi, the woman she used to be, had left her brother alone in Shepard's clutches.

She might have continued down that dark path, but Roman pulling the car over on the side of an empty country road pulled her back to the presence.

Before she could even ask, he turned to her, "You're going to need to get in the trunk again, Shepard's going to want that chip now. We don't have time to take you back until the morning."

She wanted to argue, but she knew she couldn't pass up on the chance to get another look around the compound. Even if she didn't know where exactly they hid it, the more she got to know the interior, the easier it would be to invade it later.

So instead, she simply nodded, unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car. He popped the trunk and followed her. Though she didn't need help, she allowed him to tie the blindfold for her and then help her into the trunk.

She didn't allow it to show but the thought of being locked in the darkness terrified her. It sent her right back to the cell. As soon as the trunk slammed shut, her rational mind shut down and the nightmares began.

Thankfully, she'd long since perfected the art of silent nightmares.

In the darkness she had no shield against the memories of his touch, of the laughter as the others watched what he did to her. Nor could she protect herself against the onslaught of reminders, the phantom sting of a whip on her back, or the burn of electricity as it coursed through her veins.

No here, she remembered it all.

She should have been trying to track the journey time, or the turns they took. As if she could build a map in her head that would lead them right into sandstorms layer. But in truth she couldn't.

She couldn't fight her demons, not that easily, even if she wanted to.

By the time the car finally stopped, and the trunk opened she felt close to a full on panic attack. But she made sure none of it showed, and when Roman pulled her from the trunk she forced herself to smile.

"Almost started to think you'd taken the scenic route," Somehow her voice came out calm, even though she felt like ripping the blindfold off and screaming.

He said nothing, simply grabbing her bicep, and leading her across uneven ground towards what she assumed would be the compound. Her feet hit cement, and he quietly warned her about the approaching stairs.

Soon, she heard a door open, and felt wood beneath her feet. When the door slammed, Roman gently removed her blindfold, "Come, Shepard will want to see us."

She nodded, following him and doing her best not to make it oblivious that she was mapping out everything she saw. She'd never been more thankful for her artist eye, as her eyes roamed the faces of every person they passed, committing as many of them to memory as possible.

She thought Roman might have noticed her doing it, so she forced herself to ask, "How many of these people do I know? Are any of them my friends?"

It wasn't as if she didn't want to know, but she remembered what had happened to the last man who'd claimed to be her friend from this organization. She hadn't even gotten his name before they'd shot him dead in her living room. She didn't allow herself to think of the second man, whose life she'd ended in that barn. Couldn't let herself go there.

"I'm sure you know most of them, but Shepard instructed them all to stay away from you. She doesn't want them getting in the way of your mission," Roman told her casually, as he continued to navigate the expansive maze of halls and corridors. Wherever there were, clearly calling it a compound was no exaggeration.

But his words almost gave her pause, now she wondered how many of her friends she would have to kill or put in prison for life when she brought this organization to its knees. How many more people would she have to betray before it was all over?

That thought carried her the rest of the way to Shepard's office, when they finally arrived Shepard stood waiting for them. Someone, Roman, or one of the many people they'd past must have alerted her.

"Well, did you get it?" She asked, not bothering to ask about the bruises or the blood.

Roman nodded, pulling the chip from his pocket and passing it to her, "It's only thanks to Jane we got out of there, she managed to get us all the way to the chip without triggering the alarm."

"Is that so?" Shepard asked, her eyes flickering between the two of them. She almost reminded Jane of a snake, curling up about to strike them.

"No, Roman is the one who got us out. If he hadn't of brought the explosives we would have been trapped in there." She told the woman honestly, she didn't want to take the credit.

"Well it sounds like both of you did your fair share, how many casualties?"

"Two," Jane told her, "I had to kill one of the guards attacking Roman, and a worker who got in our way before we found the chip."

Shepard looked at her, "Only two? The Remi I remembered would have killed them all, if only to say she'd done it and got away."

Jane shrugged, not letting herself fall for the trap, "Then we never would have gotten away as easily as we did. Killing for kicks is only fun when it doesn't jeopardize the mission."

For once she must have said the right thing, because shepherds eyes lite up like a Christmas tree, "Now see, if only I could convince some of the _others_ to believe that, phase two might already be complete."

Jane merely smirked at her, allowing a cold, dangerous look to enter her eyes, "Well, now that I'm back let's hope there won't be any more delays."

She hated that Shepard's eyes immediately darkened, as a smile sliding across her face, "Yes, let's hope." The woman then stepped forward and drew her into a hug, "I have missed you Remi, glad to see my daughters _finally_ come back."

Jane allowed herself to return the hug, even though it made her skin crawl, from the corner of her eyes she saw Roman's shoulder drop as if a weight had been lifted from them. He wasn't the only one happy to see Shepard's oblivious mistrust fade just the slightest.

Shepard released her and turned to Roman, "Take her back to your rooms, but stop by the chow hall to get food first. Remi, tomorrow he'll take you back, but be alert, I'll have another mission for you both soon."

Jane nodded, then followed Roman out, that had went much better than she expected. But she knew she still had a ways to go before she found herself back entirely in Shepard's good graces.

Again she did her best to map out their path as they journeyed deeper into the compound, but a place this big would take more than one trip to sort out. She just hoped Patterson came through, if she could just get a tracker, and some surveillance equipment this would be so much easier.

When they finally arrived at the mess hall, Jane forced herself to heap her plate with chicken, potatoes and broccoli. Some of the other people in the room smiled at her but none of them approached the table Roman led them to. So she passed dinner in silence.

It wasn't until after Roman brought her back to their room that either of them spoke again.

When they got into the room, she sat on one of the bed watching him as he paced the floor in front of her. She could tell that he wanted to say something had wanted to since they left the facility earlier. But she also knew he needed to say it in his own time.

So, he surprised her, when he knelt down, and pulled an intricately carved box out of a hole in the floor. He handed it to her, as if she would know what lay inside it, "You gave that to me before you left, made me promise to keep it save. I tried opening it, but you were always the one who loved puzzles." He explained when he saw her confusion.

She stared down at the box, running her fingers across it as if the mere feeling would unlock her own memories. She hardly glanced up when he moved to sit against the rail headboard on the bed she'd chosen earlier. His feet coming up to rest inches away from the side of her leg.

She'd suspected he'd been touch starved, and despite his emotionless expression, his whole body seemed to lean towards her.

"Your scar, it was my fault wasn't it?" She asked glancing at him, as her fingers brushes across the edges of the box, "I couldn't protect you."

He looked at her, his eyes intent on hers, as if she were the puzzle box, "Is that why you came back for me today? You felt guilty?" when she didn't immediately respond he continued, "Remi wouldn't have come back, she understood that the mission comes first."

She couldn't help but scoff, even as her fingers brushed against a latch, working on their own violation to unlock the box, "Well then, I hate to break this to you, but if that's true, I don't want to be Remi. If that's true, I'm glad she's gone, and I hope she never comes back."

The box clicked in her hands, opening to reveal a small gum wrapper hidden in its depths. As soon as her fingers brushed the faded paper, she had another flashback, to the two of them sitting on a cot not unlike this one. Roman's face still healing, looking so broken, so lost. Jane wanted nothing more than to take him into her arms, as her younger self reassured him that she would get back the coin that had been stolen from them. Then she gave him the wrapper, something for him to have instead of the coin, while she fought to get it back.

When she shook herself out of the memory, and pulled the wrapper from the box, Roman leaned forward. Carefully extracting it from her grasp as she turned her hand towards his, she felt entranced watching a thousand different emotions play across his face before he started laughing. Though it sounded more like a sob than a laugh by the end.

"You told me I had to learn to hide the things I loved if we ever wanted to make it out of there," His voice broke but he kept talking, painting a picture that she wouldn't ever forget, "I thought I'd lost it in the orphanage, but you, you must have gone back for it."

She felt her heart break for him, for herself, for the children they must have been before their world was torn apart by senseless violence and terror. She wanted to cry for the life they might have had. For the childhood they never got a chance to truly live.

She didn't smother the impulse to grab his hand this time, nor did she stop herself from saying the first thing that came from her heart, "I love you," Roman looked up from the wrapper than, staring at her with wonder in his eyes, "I love you Roman, I do."

She pulled him into her arms as tears started to course down his cheeks, and he cried silently into her shoulder.

She couldn't imagine the burden he'd had to bear all these months. To know that the one person in his world who'd loved him and protected him had abandoned him. Left him to become someone else. Left him alone in the world for the first time.

God, she truly had been a monster.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered into his ear, tears again coming to her eyes, but she forced them away. Instead she started to hum the song that had come to her earlier, and again she knew she'd chosen right. Within moments Roman had relaxed against her, like a child, falling asleep as the tears dried on his cheeks.

But his weight didn't feel like a burden, instead it felt like coming home.

The urge to tell him the truth, to convince him to help her and protect the life inside her had never been stronger. But she couldn't bring herself to wake him and bring more ruin to his life.

Not tonight.

The next day she held the memory tight to her chest, as she followed the ritual of blindfolding and trunk riding to leave the compound and return her to her car.

Though no words were exchanged, Roman pulled her into a tight hug before he got back into his car and left her by her car. His eyes promised her that she would see him soon, and she prayed she would. Though he'd only come back to her live recently, she knew to the very core of her being that she needed him to remain in it.

She allowed herself half the distance home, before she opened her phone to see the twenty five missed calls from Kurt and the two from Naz. She'd been gone for almost 30 hours, she understood their worry but still it felt a bit excessive. Especially from Kurt, but she would question that later.

Instead she dialed Naz's number, the woman picked up on the two ring, "Jane, we were beginning to worry, how did it go?"

"Meet me in the office in an hour, just you if you can swing it. I can debrief with the others later, but I need to talk to you alone." She had already made the woman grant Roman full immunity, something the team knew nothing about, but she wanted to see if she could convince the woman to allow her to tell Roman the truth. She'd do it without permission if it felt right, but she'd like to see how far she could push. Plus she needed to tell Naz about the two people she'd murdered, and she'd rather do that without Kurt present.

Naz would understand the need to do what she had to do to get the mission done. Kurt would only see this as further proof that she was nothing more than a monster.

"Fine, I'll be there, meet me in my office. It's a Sunday so the others shouldn't be there, and I'll make sure Kurt is occupied."

Jane didn't bother to respond simply hung up her phone and hit the gas petal a little harder.

She'd worked out exactly what she wanted to say by the time she pulled into the parking garage at the FBI headquarters, and despite having to take the elevator she felt calm by the time she reached their floor. The doors slide open, and she made her way to Naz's office after a quick survey of the floor. It appeared almost entirely deserted aside from a few agents she didn't recognize.

She didn't bother to knock when she arrived at Naz's door, she knew the woman would be expecting her. So she simply walked in.

Naz sat waiting for her at the conference table, she gestured for Jane to have a seat, and then asked her, "How did it go?"

Jane quickly broke down the mission, explaining where they'd gone and telling her about the chip they were there to steal.

"Why were you unable to allow Patterson the time to copy the chip?" Naz questioned her before she'd finished the story.

"We triggered the alarm, and I had to make the choice between us getting out of there to continue the mission or copying the chip. I figured you'd want me around to finish the mission more than you'd want a copy of the chip."

Naz nodded, but she didn't look pleased.

"But, in the course of our escape, I had to kill a security guard, and earlier I was forced to kill our escort when she threatened to alert security to our presence. Before you say anything, know that in doing so, I paved the way to regaining Shepard's trust. She said to expect a call in the next two days with another mission, and was the warmest to me she's been since my return. Remi, apparently, liked to keep the causality levels high."

The smile Naz gave her at the news, reminded her so much of Shepard she had to force herself not to gag, "Well, then I suppose it all paid off. But I'm going to need you to give me as much detail about the chip, the facility, and the compound as you can."

Jane wished she could be surprised at the utter lack of care Naz displayed for the two people Jane had killed. But Shepard and Naz were two sides of the same coin, all they cared about were results. People were merely pawns to them, to be used and discarded.

Jane nodded, "I also have a few faces I could sketch for you, Shepard allowed me more access to the compound, and had more than a skeletal crew running the place this time. I saw more than a few faces."

She didn't think Naz could look any more like the cat who got the canary, but at that delight twisted her features just that much more.

Jane did her best to relay all the information she could, and promised Naz that she would begin working on sketches of the people she'd encountered at the compound as soon as she got home.

"Is there anything else Jane?" Naz asked her as she finished speaking. Her throat felt parched from all the talking but she didn't let that stop her.

"I want to flip Roman-"

Naz shook her head, "No, absolutely not, we can't trust him. You've already won him his immunity, don't jeopardize this for sentiment."

"It's not sentiment, he's lost and confused, he wants nothing more than to trust me. I can bring him to our side, and he could be the key to bringing Sandstorm down now instead of months from now." Jane wouldn't beg, but she wouldn't let Naz turn her down without even hearing her out either.

Again Naz only shook her head, "I'm sorry Jane, that's too big of a risk. Right now, you need to concentrate on your own plan. Patterson is close to a break through with her tech, and I've given her access to everything as you requested. You need to focus on getting yourself into Sandstorms good graces, not trying to worm your brother into ours."

Jane wanted to argue, but she knew she need not bother. Naz wasn't going to give this to her, and she knew none of the others would care on lick whether or not her brother came to their side. To them she would never be anything but a traitor.

She knew they'd see her brother as much the same.

"If that's all, you're excused," Naz told her, already focusing on the files in front of her as if Jane had left the room.

Jane took a deep breath and forced herself not to tell the woman exactly what she thought of her dismissal. Instead, she left, letting her thoughts of the team's reaction to what she'd had to do occupy her thoughts for her ride home.

She'd almost gotten to her door, when she thought to text Kurt to let him know that she was back, and to ask to have her detail returned to her street. It might be silly, but it felt nice to know that people who didn't think of her as the enemy guarded her street.

She didn't bother looking for his reply, instead she silenced her phone, and went into the kitchen to cook herself some dinner. Thanks to Naz's never ending questions, she'd missed lunch and she felt as if she could eat a horse.

Tomorrow she'd deal with the fallout with the team, when she debriefed them on what she'd done yesterday. But for now she was going to cook herself some food, sit down on the couch, and enjoy a show Matt, one of her detail members, had casually mentioned to her. Community, she found she quite liked it.

Maybe when this was all over she'd go to college.

She let her own imagined future lull her into a state of peace as she cooked. Today she felt one tiny step closer to the possibility of a future without fear.


	4. Chapter 4

Hey guys,

First thank you to anyone whose stuck around, I know its been ages since I updated but I promise I haven't abandoned this story. Nursing schools been crazy, and theres been a lot going on in my life aside from that. So I let this story, and my others fall to the wayside. I promise to be better!

Second, I hope this update is worth the wait! I know I kind of skimmed over the episodic material in this chapter, but to be honest unlike last chapter I didn't think it was necessary to do a play by play of the episode material. I think this time I just needed the general feel, so I focused largely on the interactions that mattered and how they affect my story.

Third, as always, reviews, and favorites feed my soul! So feel free to shoot me some love! You guys really are the best of the best! I love you all so very much and hope everyone been having a much easier go of things then myself!

Lots of love,

Fallen

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It had been a week and a half since her successful mission to the factory with Roman and already she'd been on two more with him. Both had her gone for under twelve hours, one a simple retrieval mission, they'd gone to a drop site picked up a package and taken it back to the base.

No one had to die.

She didn't think she'd get many missions like that. Especially as things heated up. But she'd managed to get Shepard to admit that the package contained a critical piece to the mother board they were building for whatever weapon the chip belonged to. Thanks to her sketch of the company Logo on the building Patterson was getting closer to narrowing down exactly what Shepard had waiting in the wings.

It felt good to make some progress.

The second mission however, hadn't ended as picture perfectly as the other. She'd had to kill again, taking the life of a man who'd gotten in their way at a critical moment.

Sometimes she swore she could still see the blood on her hands. Feel the slick grit between her fingers, and feel it drying under her nails.

She'd washed her hands for what felt like hours when she'd gotten home. But no matter how hard she scrubbed, how much her fingers ached and bruised, it never seemed to come off. She'd forced herself to stop when her scrubbing caused fresh blood to leak down her palms. But the temptation to continue had been there.

At least Roman hadn't killed anyone, no like the factory mission, he'd hesitated, taking down people with non-lethal strikes. She didn't mind killing if it meant that his hands remained clean.

Slowly she worked on convincing him that he could be better. That they could be better. With each mission, she thought she got closer to that goal.

So at least she'd done some good.

Shepard seemed delighted with her performances, her smile growing more and more serpentine with each successful mission. She reminded Jane of the main villain in the book series Brian and Mark, from her protective detail, had recommended. Lord Voldemort or He-who-shall-not-be-named. She wished she'd had someone to make the comparison to, but she doubted anyone on the team would want to laugh with her.

Since she'd debriefed on her original mission with Roman, and revealed that she'd had to kill two people the team had been exceptionally frosty toward her.

When she'd first admitted, it she might as well have said she ate babies for fun and pushed old ladies into oncoming traffic for the way the team reacted. As if they'd never killed someone during a mission before. But because it was her, it only further proved that they were right in all their assumptions.

She'd become the monster lurking in their midst. Every move she made, every sound she uttered so carefully monitored as if they knew sooner rather than later she'd pull back her skin to reveal the demon hidden beneath it.

Though Patterson still smiled at her, she alone seemed to understand the burden that lay on her shoulders. Once she'd even drawn Jane into a parody of a hug, and asked her about Roman as if she cared.

Jane had to leave right then.

She didn't think Patterson would appreciate it if Jane suddenly started crying in her office. But she'd returned later with two servings of the fried rice she'd made the night before, and the two of them sat and had lunch together.

A uniquely human experience. Something she hadn't had the chance to do in so long she almost felt like an imposter sitting there.

But she'd reveled in the moment. She carried it with her now like an invisible shield against the darkness always creeping into the corner of her vision, invading every moment of her life.

Though it did little to protect her from Kurt.

His reaction had been the worst, in those first moment after the words left her lips his eyes seemed to shutter and grow cold as they looked at her. His lips curled down in disgust and his nose wrinkled as if he smelled something awful all the sudden.

Since then it had only gotten worse. Every second he spent around her or near her that look would cross his face. He made sure to stay as far from her as he could, and the mission they'd completed together in the interim she'd been sent off on her own. As if he no longer trusted her near his precious team or himself.

Every debrief she'd been secluded in the far corner, hardly able to participate least she feel the burn of his acid gaze on her.

Naz seemed to be trying to get him to come around, but Jane wouldn't put her money on it. Naz would never push too far, because she needed him in her back pocket. Far more than she needed him to like Jane.

But she'd grown used to this, like everything else, and if the team's words were just a little harsher. Just a little crueler than she did her best to hide how each word scuttled under her skin and burrowed its way into her soul. How they slide along her scars, and made them burn as if someone were pressing a heated iron to her flesh.

A feeling she knew all too well.

Still, she had Patterson, even if she didn't go against the team to stand beside her. She had Roman, even if she had to lie to him every time they met. After one weird but pleasant coffee date, she thought she might have Allie. Though she didn't push too far on that one least Kurt find out and forbid her from seeing the woman. Who's slowly protruding belly only served to remind Jane that it wouldn't be long before her time ran out.

She only prayed she'd be one of those pregnant women who didn't show until the fifth or sixth month. Though they tended to balloon in what felt like days.

For all of this though, it felt as if time trickled by, as though the world held its breath waiting to see what would become of her. It wasn't until Rich Dot Com entered their floor in chains that time seemed to begin again.

Hope.

In that moment, it felt as if everything came together and she felt true hope spark in her chest. Rich Dot Com could be the answer to all her problems. He had the resources that she needed, and she knew he would help her.

Even though he brought danger with him into their midst she wanted nothing more than to hug him. The next few hours seemed to pass in a blur as Rich escaped his cell, admitted that a hired killer was after him and then they discovered the killer had already infiltrated FBI headquarters.

By the time the bomb goes off leaving Jane alone in the room with Rich, she knew she should make their time count.

"Now that kill-joys gone, what do you say we take a little time for some stress relief?" Rich asked her the second Kurt rushes out of the room. His eyes alight with mischief and a feline smile stretched across his face.

For a moment, she almost laughed at the absurdity of the man in front of her. Instead she turned to face him fully, "Cut the shit Rich, we both know you couldn't handle me alone, let alone with Kurt despite your constant suggestions."

"Meow," Rich tossed back with a smirk, "Looks like Kitty finally brought back out her claws. I've missed this Janey, don't tell me you haven't missed having Richie in your life."

This time she did laugh, "I'd be lying if I tried," she paused her a second, the laughter dying as the sound of an explosion rocked through the room. Reminding her of exactly where she was and why she needed to stay here instead of going out to check that Patterson and the others were alright.

"Look Rich, I'm going to cut to the chase, I need your help to finish the last mission I'm going to complete for the FBI-"

Before she could say more Rich held up his hand, "Now Janey, you know that old Rich is always here to help his favorite secret agent. But what do I get if I help you? Aside from your eternal gratitude?"

She had to hand it to him, his ability to maintain his persona even in a life or death situation impressed her, "I'd owe you a favor, and I think you know just how much I can do."

"Are there anything limits to this favor?" He asked, his eye brows lifting suggestively as he did a slow surveillance of her body.

She narrowed her eyes at him, "You know that's not on the table, anyways I took you for a man who'd rather persuade a woman into his bed not force her in."

His eyes appraised her, and his persona seemed to slip away as his gaze met hers, "You're actually serious about this?"

She only nodded, again he appraised her but before either of them could say anything else Kurt barreled into the room.

"He got Zapata, we need to distract him so the others can get to her," Kurt told her without looking at her instead sending what could only be described as a death glare to Rich, "If she dies because you brought him here I will kill you."

Rich for once in his life remained silent as his hands came up in a "Don't shoot" gesture.

That's how Jane found herself in a suffocating silent room with the two of them while they waited for the killer to appear in their midst.

Thankfully they didn't have to wait for long, and before Jane knew it she'd become embroiled in a fight to the death with the first person to truly match her skills. One of the blows hit a little too close to her stomach and suddenly Jane felt herself take on a whole new level.

After just a few minutes of intense fighting, she got her chance, and her leg lashed out throwing her opponent into the tablet behind them just in time for Kurt to shove a knife into his chest.

She couldn't stop her hands from coming up to touch her belly, nor the fear that flashed in her eyes as she looked up and met Rich Dot Coms gaze. In that moment, she knew that he had figured out exactly why she needed to end her time with the FBI.

She shook her head desperately at the man as Kurt gave her his back, and she thought in that moment that Rich might tell him. But he didn't, instead he gave her the kind of look that proved to her that beneath the persona he gave the public Rich was a very complicated man.

It felt like hours before she saw Rich again. Naz saved Zapata at the last second, and Patterson sustained minimal damage from the bomb going off. When Jane went to check on the woman before she met Kurt to escort Rich into custody she managed to overhear Patterson talking to Naz and Weller about what she'd uncovered.

Apparently Rich hadn't been so honest with them.

He intended to escape their custody with his not so dead lover. As much as she wanted the satisfaction of pulling one over Rich she needed him free.

So, she found a way to slip him a small piece of paper as they handed him over to the feds.

 _They know._

Is all it said, but she knew he'd get the message. Still as she got into the SUV with the rest of the team as they moved to intercept Rich's transport van she hoped he'd gotten the message in time.

When they opened the back of the van and found it empty she only just kept herself from laughing out loud as the angry buzzing around them began.

"I'm sorry Patterson, he must have figured out you knew," She whispered to the blonde as they walked back towards the SUV, "But no one else even came close to figuring out that he'd lied about Boston being dead. Next time you'll get him for sure."

She knew the blonde took it personally that the two men had escaped her clutches not once but twice. If it were anything less than her child on the line she would never have allowed her friend to deal with the loss of them twice.

But for her child she would burn the world to the ground without a second thought.

"I know, but I really thought I'd finally got them," Patterson went on, making another reference to harry potter, which Jane still wasn't entirely through with. After the ending of the fifth book she'd had to take a break. It had gotten a little too close to home for her. But she listened to the blonde attentively and did her best to avoid the eyes of the rest of the team.

Kurt especially seemed to be lingering on her, as if they knew somehow that she'd been the one to tip Rich off. But she knew they wouldn't be able to prove it if they tried. So, she ignored them, and accompanied everyone back to the FBI building.

Kurt immediately called her into his office, Naz trailing seconds behind them as they walked into his office.

"You were the last one with him, did he seem suspicious at all?" Kurt barked at her, his eyes roving her as if he were just praying she'd give him an excuse to put another pair of handcuffs on her.

"Kurt, don't you think you're being a little unreasonable?" Naz cool voice seemed to spark the tension in the room as the door to Kurt's office closed behind her, "Jane has no reason to help Rich Dot Com nor was there any indication she did. She's doing everything she can to help us take down sandstorm, and I fail to see how your endless suspicious is helping."

If Jane thought for the second that woman had any regard for her wellbeing she might have cheered. But she knew that Naz would let her die or hand her back to the CIA in a heartbeat if it would get her closer to her goals. So, she instead remained silent, watching Kurt's fist clench and his jaw tighten as he stared the two of them down.

"I only wanted to know if she noticed anything, I fail to see why you are even here, this has nothing to do with sandstorm." Kurt spat back at her.

Naz drew herself up, "Everything involving Jane involves me because without her we wouldn't have the slightest chance of taking down sandstorm. Did you think for a second what it might look like for you to call her into your office immediately following what just happened? You should be consoling your agents, and figuring out what went wrong. Not interrogating Jane and giving people more of a reason to distrust her."

At this point she didn't even know why she'd bothered coming in. Clearly the Naz and Kurt needed to work out their own issues. Something she wanted no part in. But she stood there and listened for another five minutes before she interrupted Kurt who seemed seconds away from screaming.

"Rich didn't say anything to me, I thought he seemed as overconfident as ever but as you know that's merely his personality. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me, but if that's all I'm going to leave. Unless you intent for us all to do our paperwork tonight?" She asked Kurt calmly, allowing her eyes to roam to the clock behind him after he made eye contact. They only had an hour before midnight, and she knew even he wouldn't keep them here that long.

"Fine, I expect a detailed report in the morning," Kurt bit out, turning away from her to resume his argument with Naz. Dismissing her without a second glance. She wondered when he'd become the cruelest person in her life. At least before he looked at her with something other than pure hatred.

Now it seemed that whatever lingering feelings he'd had about her had died.

Sometimes she just wanted to shout at them all. Tell that she's only human too, and that humans made mistakes. Tell that she only did what she had to do, that she wasn't a monster, just someone backed into the corner.

Wanted to ask them what gave them the right to judge her. What made them so superior to her, so flawless that they could look down their noses at her.

When she saw that Reade and Zapata clustered themselves outside the office, no doubt listening in and enjoying Kurt's theatrics. The temptation to let it all out reached an all-time high, but instead she simply looked at the two of them letting them know exactly what she thought of them.

She heard them muttered as she brushed by them but she ignored them. Instead she made her way to the lab to see Patterson before went to the locker room to collect her stuff.

"Oh Jane, you are heading home?" Patterson asked as she looked up from her computer and took notice of her presence.

Jane nodded, "I just wanted to make sure you were alright before I left. I know it can be hard when things don't go the way we expect them to."

The fact that she'd been the reason that Patterson's carefully laid plan had failed only served to further the awful feeling in her chest. The one person who'd been something other than cruel to her since she returned and she'd betrayed them.

But Rich would turn the tide in this little war of hers.

So, she'd done what she'd always done, what she had to.

Patterson gave her a small smile, not as bright as normal but not as dim as she'd feared, "Yeah, I'm okay Jane, thanks for checking up on me. I'm just going over everything trying to figure out how Rich figured everything out. I really thought I'd managed to pull the wool over his eyes, I mean he quoted Harry Potter at me and thought he'd get away with it. I'm the queen of nerds, he had to know I would figure it out-"

She paused for a second her eyes lighting up, "But maybe he wanted me to figure it out. Rich is the type to do something like that."

Jane stifled her own laughter as Patterson's eyes sharpened, and she began to furiously type on her computer, "Well good luck with that Patterson."

"Thanks Jane," Came the absent-minded reply, the blondes focus already far away from the dark-haired woman beside her.

Jane stayed a second to watch her friend in her element before she left to gather her things to leave.

She found herself glad that Kurt hadn't forced her to stay late to finish paperwork. It could wait until tomorrow, because she knew that Rich wouldn't take long to appear at her apartment. Not with what his eyes had told her he knew in that moment after the knife had ended the life of his would-be assassin.

She allowed those thoughts to pull her under as she exited the locker room with her things, collecting the boys from where they waited for her at the end of the hall and moving towards the stairs.

He would have too many questions, and from what he'd said when they'd first brought him in. She suspected that he knew where she'd been those three long months.

She almost didn't want to deal with the look in his eyes when he pieced it all together.

She liked that he looked at her like the strong woman, capable of anything and everything. She didn't want to see how much that would change. Because she knew it wouldn't take Rich but a few moments to piece together how she'd fallen pregnant.

She didn't want to be the victim.

She needed his intelligence but she hated it in that moment.

"You alright their Jane?"

She looked up in shock to see Brian, Mark, and Tucker standing in front of her waiting at the door into the parking garage for her, "Yes, I'm sorry I guess I'm a little out of it."

They didn't look convinced by her awkward laugh, "Do we need to swing by CVS on the way to the safe house? It looks like someone got a few good hits in."

A genuine smile brushed her lips as she walked towards them, "No, I have things back at the house, thank you though."

The three men each smiled at her, and surrounded her as they moved towards the SUV that waited for them with Jared behind the wheel. As they got into the car and drove towards the house she allowed their companionable conversation to warm and distract her. She absently accepted and began to munch on the granola bar Mark handed her.

She'd finished it by the time they pulled in front of the safe house.

"We'll be down the street until midnight, then Chris, Larry, Jack and Ryan are taking over for the night. So, give us a shout if you need anything, okay?" Tucker told her as Mark moved to open her door for her.

"Thanks guy, I'll see you tomorrow, have a good night okay?"

They all replied in the affirmative and she got out of the car with a smile on her face.

She waited until the car pulled away from the front of the house before she entered. Though no lights were on in the apartment but she knew that he was in the house. Still, she waited until she took her shoes off and entered the kitchen before she said anything.

"How long have you been waiting for me?" She asked the darkness as she went to open her fridge pulling out a bottle of water and a sandwich she'd made for herself that morning.

"About thirty minutes, though it only took me thirty seconds to figure out where your safehouse is located. The FBI really is lax with their security these days, aren't they?" Rich asked her, the light in the living room flickering on as the man realized he'd lost the element of surprise, "How did you know I was here?"

Jane actually laughed that time, "Rich, I know you, as soon as I talked to you in that room I knew that you would be here when I got back. You wouldn't be able to resist knowing that I needed you for something. It would feed your ego too much," She told him as she walked into the living room to sit on the small chair across from the couch Rich had arranged himself on.

"Where your lover boy?" She asked glancing around as she took a bite of her sandwich.

Rich just shrugged his shoulders, "Around, don't worry he's not in the house, I made him wait in the car."

"Do you give him a treat when he's a good boy?" She snarked taking another healthy bite of her sandwich. Pregnancy had forcefully reminded her stomach that she required a very high number of calories to function daily.

Rich chuckled, "Now there's the Janey I remember, I worried the CIA might have taken away your sparkle. Glad to see I had no reason to worry."

The weight on her back increased, as dread filled her, "How did you find out about that?"

"You didn't think that I've been watching your team since our first time together?" He asked nonchalantly, "I noticed when you disappeared all the sudden but it took me longer than I would have liked to figure out where you'd been taken. By the time, I got my armor on and stormed the castle you, my fair maiden, were long gone. Very impressive by the way, I knew you were good but I didn't think anyone could be that good."

Jane gave him a smile full of teeth, "Well despite their warm welcome, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a hole. I'm sure you understand, after all, what is this the third time you've escaped federal custody?"

"Well, if you all would stop making it so easy I might consider staying but you know me. I enjoy getting the chance to play with my favorite secret agents, but this time the little blonde might have pulled the wool over my eyes. I shouldn't have quoted Dobby, but I couldn't help myself, the set up was just too much to resist." His brown eyes danced with mirth as if he enjoyed the thought that he came so close to being caught for good.

"No one would have ever figured it out if you hadn't of said anything, but that doesn't matter. Let's cut to the chase," Jane told him, leaning forward in her chair as she popped the cap off her water.

"Yes, let's," Rich agreed, all the humor gone from his face as he too leaned forward looking at her as if she were a slide on a microscope, "Which one of them did it?" He asked his eyes straying to look at her stomach.

"I know it couldn't have been Agent Weller, even if I'm stilling rooting for you, I can sense the tension there and it doesn't say 'we-just-fucked' more of a 'I-hate-myself-for-not-hating-you' kind of thing, ya know?"

She didn't bother to tell him that she doubted Kurt had anything feelings toward her but hatred at this point, "Does it matter?"

Rich shrugged, "I suppose it doesn't, I just wanted to know who just made their way to the top of my list. I don't like people touching my things, and you are my very favorite special agent. So, you fall under that umbrella."

Jane snorted, "Rich, I'm not your toy, and something aren't worth the trouble. My advice is to stay far away from them, because they won't be like me or the team. They'll hurt you and enjoy it. But we're getting distracted, I know you figured out why I'm doing this but you still don't know what this is."

Jane paused, making sure she had the man's full attention, "I'm trying to take down the organization known as Sandstorm, a woman named Shepard is the leader, they erased my memories and sent me here to infiltrate the FBI. In exchange for my freedom, I've switched sides, and in the interest of it-" she couldn't bring herself to say the words my child, instead her hand curled protectively around her stomach, "I need to bring them down much faster than I had initially planned."

"Well, you certainly don't start small, do you? Shepard is a lady I've only dealt with once, and she's nothing if not a stone-cold bitch. She didn't seem to care for me, but I'm willing to help you in any way I can. Even if you hadn't of helped me get out of federal custody, I'd be inclined to help you because I imagine you're the kind of woman one wants to have in their back pocket."

She just couldn't seem to escape, she traded in one yoke for another, repeatedly. But at least she'd only owe Rich one favor, and then it would be done.

"So, what do you need? Money, tech, information? How can Rich dotcom help you Janey?" Rich asked her, his brown eyes serious as they roved her face searching for the answers.

She allowed herself to smile, the kind of smile she imagined a wolf gave before it devoured you whole, as she leaned forward and told him exactly what she wanted.

By the time, they finished talking midnight had long since come and gone. But even though she knew she'd spend all tomorrow exhausted she felt as if some of the weight on her shoulders had fallen away.

"It might take me a week or two to get everything together. But expect to hear from me soon," Rich told her as he stood from her couch, stretching casually before he walked up and squatted in front of her chair, "That kid is going to be lucky to have you, try to get out of this with all your limbs attached."

Before she could say anything, he stood, and moved towards her back door, "Oh and tell me if you change your mind about telling Uncle Rich who the unlucky man is," He called just before the door slammed shut behind him.

The thought tempted her, she wouldn't lie to herself, but she had bigger fish to fry. Tonight, thanks to Rich, she might sleep for a few hours without dreams of the CIA or him. Because for the first time, she truly truly thought she might be able to come out of this unscathed. Long before any of them suspected exactly what fueled her sudden unstoppable drive to take down sandstorm.

As she dragged herself to her feet, polishing off the last of her water bottle as she moved towards the stairs, she couldn't help but smile.

Even as she closed her eyes, and the darkness began to seep in through the corners, hope still lingered in the background. Like the first kiss of sunlight after weeks of rain.

She could do this.

No, she would do this.

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QUESTION time!

I have three polls this time:

1\. Would you like for one of the team members to uncover Jane's pregnancy in the next two chapters? If so who?

2\. Would you like Jane's protective detail to feature more stronger in the coming chapters? Or would you like them to stay the fuck out of things aside from a little mention here or there?

3\. Is there anything you'd like to see in the coming chapters in regards to Jane and the team? This story probably had 5-8 chapters left so now the time to mention anything if you do! J


	5. Chapter 5

Hey guys!

Sorry it has been so abysmally long since I updated, after my crazy nursing semester (passed by the way!) I took a three week vacation to the UK and just relaxed. I am getting back into the swing of things and doing my best to keep some sort of schedule.

Anyways, this should be a nice long chapter for you guys and I'm in the midst of rewatching Blindspot season 1 and 2 so should have plenty to keep my creative juices flowing!

As always lots of love,

Fallen

ALSO, the beginning of this chapter may be uncomfortable for some, so if you do not want to read it please start at the unitalized section! 3

Second Also, I need to give a HUGE shout out to my amazing new editor Marablackwolf! She is seriously incredible and you guys can thank her for more than one moment in this chapter! She is incredible, and my story is going to be so so much better with her at the helm!

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 _"_ _Come now Janey, you didn't really think you'd get away from me, did you?"_

 _Her heart began to race as her gaze flittered around the darkness surrounding her, trying to find him; she wouldn't let him have them. She saw nothing, heard nothing but the echo of his voice._

 _She took a step forward, arms outstretched and immediately she hit a wall, she turned and again hit another wall._

 _Again and again she turned but each time she tried to move the walls seemed to get closer and closer. The echoes of his voice seemed to grow louder, the hair on the back of her neck stood up and her breath began to come quicker._

 _"_ _This is a dream, it has to be a dream," she muttered to herself, fighting against the terror threatening to pull her under. She had to get out of here, she had to hide…no, she had to fight. She wouldn't let him touch her again, wouldn't let him hurt her again, no mattered what it took._

 _"_ _Janey, Janey, Janey, my little doe, look at you back where you belong. In a cage. Only this time you aren't getting out, and we're going to be spending a lot of quality time together." He laughed and the echoes sent shivers down her spine._

 _The memories of him threatened to drown her; how dirty his touch made her feel, the terrible things he did. The things he let the others do when he thought she'd done something wrong. The way their eyes felt when they watched him defile her._

 _She forced herself to take a deep breath. She had to stay calm, she had to. But she couldn't stop her heart from pounding against her chest no matter how many breaths she took._

 _A hand brushed the hair back from her neck, and she felt his breath touch her skin, "Oh Janey, I'm just so glad you're back," he whispered, but when she turned around no one was there._

 _She pinched herself, "Please wake up, please," she begged but nothing happened. The darkness only grew darker, and the walls around her seemed to shrink further._

 _She felt hands come around her neck, squeezing against her larynx and choking the breath out of her. She fought but the hands only tightened, the cloying smell of his cheap cologne invaded her lungs, polluting the tiny amount of air she could suck in past his fingers._

H _er vision started to go dark, and she felt her heart stutter in her chest._

She sat up with a gasp, fingers grasping her neck searching for his fingers, her nose searching for his scent. Her eyes searched the room as she tried to suck in enough air to fill her lungs.

No one.

No one was in the room. But she could feel him on her skin. Taste the blood in her mouth. Smell the overpowering reek of cologne, sweat and fear.

She would never be free of him.

 _They_ would never be free of him.

There in her bedroom, the stench of fear and desperation clinging to her, she wanted nothing more than to hunt him down and kill him. Only with his death- or hers- would she be free.

But she knew she couldn't do it. Not if she wanted to be a mother.

The mere thought of him being anywhere near their child made her nightmare dig even deeper into her. Her breathing, still rapid, now stuttered as the meager contents of her stomach fought their way out of her. Her sheets already ruined by her sweating were soon covered in vomit.

She didn't know how long she heaved before it became little more than violent dry heaving. Her body fighting to expel something when nothing remained. It reminded her of the after effects of drowning. When the body became so desperate to rid itself of water that it choked and sputtered. Fighting violently against a foe no longer trying to defeat it.

She hung there for some time, her head resting against one of her thighs as she surveyed the damage, her mind still trapped in that cage. But distantly her mind sought to remind her, this couldn't possibly be good for the baby. This unbreakable state of panic, the smell of vomit and fear that clung to the air.

All of it toxic. Though familiar in a way she longed to forgot. An irony not lost on her, the woman who'd wanted once so desperately to remember who'd she'd been and what she'd done.

She forced herself to push those thoughts away and focused on her breathing the way that Dr. Borden had taught her. Minutes ticked by but she felt her heart begin to slow, her fingers falling from her neck as she began to realize her clothing clung to her and her sheets were wet beneath her. She'd soaked everything. She stood and began to strip the bed, pulling off her clothing as she went, pulling it all into a bundle and leaving her bedroom to head for the small laundry room across the hall.

God. She just wanted one night of solid sleep. One morning where she woke up and felt refreshed, instead of waking up and feeling like she hadn't slept for a second.

It wasn't even for herself that she wanted that. She didn't care if she slept or not, she was fairly certain she deserved to spend every moment- waking or sleeping- paying for the terrible things she done. The terrible things that she had been a part of in the life before she became Jane. For the betrayals, she had committed as Jane.

But she had a _child_. A life growing inside her that needed her to be solid. To be healthy and rested.

How could she do that when her mind wouldn't even let her rest?

She didn't even realize she had started to cry until the tears began to hit her collar bone with tiny wet splats. In that moment, it was all just too much. The weight of her life. The things had happened to her, all that had been done to her and what she'd been made to endure. Her feet fell from beneath her, and her knees hit the floor.

She let herself curl up into a ball beside her cool sweaty, vomit soaked, laundry and cried. Her body shook with the effort, and a distant part of her thought the force of her sobs couldn't be good for the baby.

But what part of her life was?

What horrible god had decided that _she_ of all people should be a _mother_?

She couldn't even fix herself, couldn't function like a normal person. How was she supposed to be a mother to a child? To raise someone that wouldn't be a monster?

Look at what she had done to her brother. To her team. To herself. Only a monster was capable of that, and monsters don't raise children. They only haunted them.

God, she couldn't even stop _crying_. How pathetic.

Her own pained moans echoed back at her in the hallway, and her shuttering wet breaths clawed at her ears. But still she could do nothing but lay there in a ball crying in a way she hadn't since her very first day in this very safe house. Here where she felt the walls around her crumbling as she realized she had no one, that she _was_ no one.

If she could laugh at the irony she might. But all she could do was let out another wet sob at the realization that her position hadn't changed. Sure, she knew who she was… but that person didn't deserve to exist.

And she still had no one. Even Roman only loved her because he thought she was someone else.

What she wouldn't do for just one person. One person who cared.

She let herself drown in her own misery for what must have been hours. Laying there even after her tears dried to her cheeks and her breath stuttered back to normal. She just stared into the shadows of the room and let the thoughts suck her under.

It wasn't until her alarm clock began to blare from her bedroom that she finally pushed herself to her feet. She let the alarm clock buzz as she shuffled down the hallway and put the linens into the washer. The noise stopped for a minute or two before the buzzing began again, louder now. But still she couldn't seem to force herself to make the journey down the hallway to her bedroom.

She felt drained, depressed and hopeless. The flicker of hope she'd been carrying since her plan began to come together- since she spoke to Rich- seemed to fade away, replaced by a desolate, barren waste land inside her.

By the third iteration of the alarm she finally made it to her room, shutting the alarm off and grabbing an outfit before she went to take a shower. With practiced ease, she avoided the mirrors on her dresser, in the hallway, all of which she had covered one night not long after she'd returned. Her detail had given her odd looks when she'd insisted on stopping by home depot, but those looks had grown confused when she'd returned with buckets of black paint. She'd spend the night painting all the reflective surfaces in her home black.

It had felt right then. Fitting in a way. That objects that might have once revealed her physical form now revealed what remained of her inner form. A twisted, endless black hole, nothing reflected in it any longer.

All but one. As she entered the bathroom she stopped for a second to look at the few gnarly pieces of glass that hung in the frame above her sink. Distorted, twisted reflections of herself looked back at her. Here is where she came when she wanted to give in to it. When she wanted to let all those feelings go. She'd stood for hours before staring at the tiny, fucked up reflections of herself in the cracked and twisted glass in front of her.

Sometimes she'd got so close she'd crush her fingers across the jagged edges. Watching with a detached, macabre interest as tiny drops of blood further diluted her image.

Other times she whispered at her far-off appearance in those fragile fragments, telling them all the things she longed to tell the others. All the twisted truths and lies that had created the mutilated monster that returned home to them.

But days like today, she let her eyes linger for a moment, disgust clawing its way down her throat as her stomach rebelled again. Violently retching air from her lungs, and forcing painful spasms down her limps.

She never _wanted_ to look at her disfigured body but today she could hardly stand the flashes she caught as she stared straight ahead. Let alone what she'd seen reflected at her right then. She'd looked like a ghost, a haunted apparition that bemused adults told stories of to children who'd made the mistake of lingering by the fire too long.

Her eyes empty and haunted, her body scarred and thin, even after weeks of better treatment, and her face gaunt and stained by tears and too many sleepless nights.

As before, she pushed those thoughts away, and forced herself to finish her morning routine. She showered on autopilot, and dressed in her standard outfit of long pants and a long shirt. Today she picked the shirt with the longest sleeves, the ones that covered her fingers. With a distant awareness, she strapped her gun onto her belt and one into the holster on her ankle before she started down the stairs. She flicked the light on, and started towards the kitchen before she skidded to a stop pulling her gun- her mind suddenly wide awake.

"Who are you?" she asked, her voice scratching against her throat as she forced the words out. A middle-aged woman with a kind face stood in the middle of her living room, a table and an assortment of machines besides her. For some reason, the gun pointed at her didn't seem to faze her.

Instead of reacting, the woman smiled, "Are you Jane Doe? Rich sent me to wait for you this morning. My name is Mindy, I'm an ultrasound tech at one of the best OB/GYN facilities in the country. Rich only pays for the best, I'm sure you know, and he sent me here for you."

Jane didn't lower her gun, but her phone started to ring, keeping the gun pointed at _Mindy_ she answered it, "Hello."

"Hello there beautiful, how's my favorite super special secret agent? Did you get my present? Do you love it? Tell me you love it, I did it just for you." The enthusiasm in his voice grated on the headache slowly forming behind her eyes.

"Rich, why didn't you tell me you were going to send someone to my safe house? I almost shot her," she tried to force irritation into her voice but it fell flat. She couldn't force herself to feel something when she felt nothing right now.

She felt more than heard his shift to seriousness, "Jane, is something wrong? Do you not like Mindy? I can replace her as easily as a snap of my fingers. I just thought you might want to see your baby. I know you can't exactly make it to the doctors for a regular check-up."

She shook her head. "Just a rough night Rich, but thank you. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to repay you." Truly she didn't. The thought of seeing her baby excited her, even if the excitement felt muted and dull it was _something_.

"I only want you and that adorable little assassin you're cooking to survive. And promise me that you'll consider what we talked about last night?" All the humor had left his voice and she thought about their conversation, the impossible dream that Rich had offered her.

"I will Rich, but I have to go. I'm going to be late if I don't get things going." Without waiting for a moment, she hung up, she knew he'd understand and she slowly lowered the gun, "What do I have to do now?"

Mindy smiled at her, "If you come over here, we can listen to the baby's heartbeat, and possibly estimate how far along you are. I can also give you a 3D image of the baby to take with you."

Jane couldn't even imagine, she'd accepted that she would never get to see her baby until she held it in her arms- if she even made it that far. Slowly she walked to the table, and sat down trying her best to block the memories it brought to the surface.

 _She wouldn't let him ruin this moment_.

"Okay I'm just going to lift your shirt, put some gel on your belly and we'll get to work, okay?" Mindy told her as she put on a pair of gloves and got to work.

Jane watched her as she put the warm gel on her stomach, and brought the wand to her skin. The monitor beside her lit up black and grey as a slow, regular whooshing sound filled the air.

Mindy smiled at her, even brighter now, "Now that's your heart beat, but let's see if we can find the baby's. Don't panic, the baby is still tiny if the time line you gave Rich is correct and they tend to hide."

Despite her words, Jane felt her heart begin to race as the moments grew longer and still Mindy gave no indication that she'd found her baby. But then a rapid swoosh filled the air and Mindy gave her a blinding smile, "There they are, a nice strong rhythm, I'll let you listen while I start the imaging process. See if I can get you a good image of this little cutie."

Jane felt a smile pull on her lips, and for the second time that day tears pooled in her eyes, escaping down her cheeks.

When the monitor flickered, the tech spoke kindly. "Would you look at that, judging from the size I'd say you're about 11 weeks along Ms. Doe. But after I go over the scans I can send more specific information to you, Rich gave me your email account. For now, I'll let you look at this while I print you a copy. Rich was very specific about your timeline and you were a little later coming down than he expected you to be."

Jane felt a prick of guilt but she felt too much joy looking at the tiny image of her child, who looked no bigger than a clementine. She stared for what felt like hours, but she knew it was only minutes. Then Mindy pressed a picture into her hands, no bigger than a sticky note, "For you to keep with you, I'll leave a larger one on the fridge when I leave. Rich left me a set of keys, I'll be dropping by every two weeks to check on you and the baby, okay? But for now, there's a breakfast sandwich and a smoothie in the kitchen for you and off to work you go."

Jane felt her smile grow strong; for someone reason Mindy's words made her feel loved; distantly she wondered if this was what a mother should be. But she pushed that thought away, "Thank you Mindy, sorry about pulling a gun on you, I wasn't expecting company."

Mindy just smiled, "No worries, darling, now go get your food and get on out of here."

Jane did as she was instructed, grabbing the food on the counter, and a paper bag sitting beside it. Apparently, her lunch had been packed for her too, but as she took a bite of her sandwich she couldn't complain. She wasn't sure if she'd ever had something so delicious in her life before.

She muttered another thank you as she raced out the door, and she almost ran into Mark at the foot of her stairs, "We were just coming to get you Jane, is everything okay? You aren't usually this late out the door."

She smiled at him, and for once it didn't feel the slightest bit forced, "Just a late start to the morning, but let's get going, you guys are going to slow me down if we don't."

He laughed and gestured for her to go ahead as he moved behind her. Tucker stood by the car waiting for them, Brian behind the wheel, both smiling at her as she walked up. Suddenly, the lingering dead feeling inside her blew away as she realized she _did_ have people who cared. Tucker opened her door for her as she slid in and walked around to the front as Mark entered the door opposite her.

The boys made idle chatter all around her, she let the sound of their conversation lull her into something resembling sleep as she rested her head against the window. When she closed her eyes the demons that lingered there tried to pull her in but the sound of her baby's rapid heartbeat chased them away. She didn't understand how fifteen minutes could chase away the darkness that dragged her down last night, but she didn't want to question it. She wanted to stay here in this bubble, with the boy's playful banter, and proof that her baby was alive and well. For once she wanted to ignore the darkness lingering on the edges, the fear she couldn't suppress when one of the boys got to close unexpectedly or someone passed too close behind her.

She wanted to ignore the instinctual fear when she smelled certain perfumes or when someone said her name a certain way. Today she just wanted to be a mom who'd just found out that her baby is perfect. Today she just wanted to be normal.

"Jane?" Mark's voice pulled her from her partial slumber, and she blinked rapidly, orienting herself again. "You fell asleep, so we let you grab a few extra minutes in the garage, but if you don't want to be late we better head up."

Jane smiled, "Thanks Mark, I really appreciate you guys, I hope you know that." Somehow, she felt the need to say it, to show the few people who had showed her affection some in return.

Mark just smiled, as Tucker got out and opened her door for her. Brian quickly got out and flanked her as they made their way into the building. They broke off when they made it up the stairs to her floor, and Jane wished them goodbye.

When she entered the bull pen she felt the weight of the team's eyes on her as she strode along the edges of the room to her desk in the back. They were used to her simply lingering in the back of the room by the time they entered, and she knew they would no doubt wonder what had caused her to cut it so close today.

But _she didn't care_.

Nothing could touch this feeling.

She let that carry her through the day, ignoring the lingering glances of her teammates and the judgement in Naz's sharp brown eyes. But by mid-day she had noticed Patterson's lingering looks, the blonde looked as if she'd spent the night in the FBI. Her hair a mess, her eyes red and glazed, and yet every time she left her lab her gaze found Jane's. She'd begun to look at Jane the way she looked at a puzzle, and given what Jane had just done with Rich she didn't want that look focused on her.

The others she could ignore- they weren't anything different. Just the same resentment and search for a reason to justify their loathing.

But Patterson usually looked at her with some iota of happiness in her gaze. Jane wasn't sure she could handle it if Patterson discovered her betrayal, not only because Jane would lose what little footing she had regained with the team and possibly be sent away again. But because aside from the boys, who she interacted with for mere moments of the day, Patterson was the only one who didn't blatantly distrust her and abuse her.

Still, she did her best not to linger on it, today had been a quiet day and after the way it had started she wanted to put as much distance between herself and the things in her life that overwhelmed her. She had begun to feel she might make it through the day successfully, the last minutes ticking down before she could go home.

There hadn't been any cases, no meetings with Naz, Kurt hadn't called her into his office to yell at her, and there hadn't been any opportunities for the team to make snide remarks about her.

In short, it had been a miracle day. Maybe she needed to start the day in a ball on the floor more often if this day was any indication.

She watched the clock hand move to the zero, officially marking the time as 7pm, and she stood getting ready to make her way around the perimeter of the room to the exit when Patterson peaked out of her office, "Jane, can I speak to you for a moment?"

Instantly dread filled her, suffocating the happiness that had buoyed her throughout the day and the wasteland began to take over again. But she forced herself to smile at the petite blonde as she made her way over to her, "Sure, what's up?"

Patterson pulled her into the lab, and right into the corner. It took Jane a second but she realized that they were the only two people in the room. The normal flunkies and computer gremlins (as Patterson jokingly called) them had all disappeared.

"Patterson, what is this about? Where is everyone?" Jane asked the woman, allowing confusion to trickle into her tone. She didn't know if the woman had discovered her treachery and she didn't need to act suspicious.

Patterson stared at her for a moment and then words started to rush out of her faster than a speeding train, "Well Jane, the truth is that I was here all night, looking over everything we had about Rich, and what happened last night. Because you know me, I have a hard time letting go, and I really thought I had got him. So, I'm not sure that I believe that he managed to outsmart me. I mean he's smart, but I'm a genius to put it lightly. And puzzles are my thing, so I knew that I could solve this one if I put my mind to it, ya know? If only so that next time we ran into him we'd be able to nail him again, not that I don't have an odd affection for him but I think he belongs in prison. If only to prove a point, we all know that prison doesn't hold people like that for long."

Jane could hardly even keep up with everything and finally she reached out and touched the blonde, "Patterson, take a breath and tell me what's going on, you're hardly making any sense right now."

Patterson looked at her for a second and then she blurted out, "Jane are you pregnant?"

Jane felt her insides freeze and all her bravado fell away. She tried to respond but nothing came out, Patterson of course moved to fill the void.

"Look, Jane, I'm asking because I reviewed the footage I saw the moment with Rich after you took down the assassin. I started to think about it and reviewing footage, I saw all the times you rushed to the bathroom, and I remembered all the times you avoided strong smells. How you looked so much more tired than you usually do. Then I thought about how you started your plan to accelerate the timeline, and how much you've thrown yourself into Sandstorm lately -as if there's some imaginary timer. If you let Rich go, I don't care, but if you are pregnant Jane I _do_."

She just gaped at Patterson, her mind racing as she tried to find a way to respond, tried to formulate a way to fit this into her plans.

"Jane?" Patterson's eyes widened to a nearly ridiculous level, and her hand hovered over Jane's. "Jane, you can trust me."

Jane felt herself nod before she could stop herself.

Next thing she knew she had an armful of Patterson, and she did her best not to let her body's natural reaction to the contact be too noticeable.

"Jane, that's wonderful, who's the father?" Patterson asked as she pulled away to look Jane fully in the face, her hands still brushing her arms.

Jane felt the blood rush from her face, and it took all her will power not to look away, "Look Patterson, I don't to talk about it. It doesn't change anything and no one can know. Do you understand me? No one."

She thought she saw the exact moment when Patterson's brilliant mind began to do the deductions, and she looked away. She didn't want to see the look in the woman's eyes, not when Patterson had once upon a time been one of her greatest friends. And the woman who even after everything looked at Jane like she was some sort of superwoman.

She didn't want to see the look in Patterson's eye when she realized that Jane had become a _victim_. Someone to feel sorry for, to awkwardly look away from when their eyes met. No, she _wanted_ to be a superwoman.

No, she _needed_ to look up and see that feeling had not gone away.

But she knew it had.

She'd seen the way the whole team looked at victims who had suffered like she had. The distant worry, and twisted fear of them, the way they handled them with kid gloves. Not that they shouldn't but they didn't seem to understand what it took to endure such things and walk away.

Not that Jane wished the understanding upon them.

Not even on her worst enemy would she wish that.

But she did her best to do better than them, to treat those women and men no differently. With compassion, but also with respect for them and their trials. She often wondered if they looked into her eyes and saw the same thing they saw in the mirror each night. The haunted, empty look that they all seemed to carry, the mask they all fixed upon their face to go out into the sunlight and face the rest of humanity as if their lives hadn't been forever altered.

Forever changed.

"Jane, I-"

She shook her head, "Don't, just promise me that you won't tell Weller or the others. I can't make a life for myself or for my child," God how strange it felt to say those words out loud, "I can't do that if Sandstorm is still hovering over me. I have to take them down and I can't do that if they know."

She dared to look up and meet the woman's eyes. She started when she saw no looks of repulsion, or bitter pity in her eyes, only compassion and understanding, "I won't tell them Jane, but I will if something happens. I won't put you or the baby at risk if it comes down to it. But if it's not life or death you have my word. But Jane, I'm here for you, okay? You don't have to be alone in this."

God, how Jane wanted to believe that but how could she?

Despite her detail, despite her brother and her own mother, she'd never really been anything _but_ alone. Since she crawled out of that bag she'd tried so desperately to create a façade of normalcy. To create bonds, to create a family- but look how that had all turned out.

"Thank you, Patterson, I trust you to keep it to yourself unless there is no other option, but I hope you understand now why we have to take Sandstorm down sooner rather than later?" She asked, choosing to ignore what Patterson had said.

Patterson nodded, "Of course Jane, I'd already been giving everything you asked for my full attention but I'll see if I can pull a few more people and get everything finished asap."

Jane forced herself to smile. "Thank you, is there anything else you needed or was that it?"

"That was all Jane, I'm sure the munchkin is starving, so don't let me keep you," She paused, her hand tightening on Jane's arm reflectively before she let go, "But Jane, I'm serious, I know I haven't been there for you like I should have been since you got back. But I'm here for you and the baby, okay? I promise you, I will do my best to help you make it through this."

Her smile didn't feel so forced this time, "Thank you Patterson, I really appreciate everything you've been doing."

They exchanged a few more words before Jane headed out, expertly moving through the bullpen and out the stairs where her detail waited for her by the door. She stayed quiet throughout the drive, still mulling over what had just happened, and barely said a word to the boys as she got out of the car and went into her safehouse.

Things had changed today, in some ways for the better and in some ways, she feared for the worst. She couldn't help but feel as if something big was on the horizon and she was almost afraid to find out what it was.

Across the city, in a high-rise apartment Reade sat on his couch, a half empty bottle in his hands as he thought about what he had overheard when he walked by Patterson's office that afternoon. The bullpen had been mostly empty, people making the normal rush to the locker rooms as they hurried to get home to their lives. He had left something on his desk or he would have been another one of them rushing out the door.

Instead he'd been in just the right place at just the right time to find out that Jane was pregnant.

He wasn't an idiot either, Jane had been too messed up since she got back to be with anyone, and all the oddities he'd chalked up to routine torture now added up to a whole new picture with this new information.

He'd been bullying a rape victim, a torture victim and someone who had once been his _friend_. How many times had he basically encouraged her to enter situations where he knew she had a small chance of coming out unharmed?

When had he become such a monster?

He took another swig as he contemplated how to handle this new information. His first instinct was to tell Kurt, to out her and make sure that she was kept safe somewhere. But for some reason he hesitated.

Sandstorm had to come down, and clearly Jane agreed. Suddenly her willingness to spill blood and risk herself for the mission seemed to make so much more sense. Jane had never liked killing, at least not in her current life, maybe before. But he couldn't judge her from Remi anymore.

No, his mind could only remind him about Jane when she'd first come.

How innocent and naïve she had been in her own way. New to the world, and yet thrown into the darkest of its corners.

He thought about all they knew about her, the murdered parents, the tortured black widow training she'd endured, being shaped and corroded by her mother. Yet even then from what they'd gathered she'd left them, gone to serve her country and be a better person. Then her country had betrayed her. Just like _they_ had betrayed her.

Why had they been so quick to judge her?

Suddenly he wondered what he would have done differently. Maybe it was the liquor. Maybe it was the image of Jane when they first found her, how hollow and beaten she'd looked even a few weeks after her escape. Or maybe it was the image of the most formidable woman he'd ever known being raped by a monster.

A monster they'd _given her to_.

What was he going to do?

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Hope you all enjoyed this rather dark, twisty chapter! Next chapter the real actions starts, Iknow I've mentioned a few times this story is drawing to an end but I'm afraid I've lied. My muse is taking me down a much darker direction than I had anticipated in the coming chapters, and there's no way this story won't eek out at least 10 more chapter! Maybe more, who knows!

Anyways, as always I love you guys and thank you for hanging on this messy, dirty ride with me!

No Poll today but definitely one tomorrow!


	6. Chapter 6

Hey guys,

Long time no see! Ha-ha I really am the worst, I apologize but I will continue to write these stories when I can! I wish I was more reliable for you guys! But I promise this is a long one and I'm already working on the next chapter (it was going to be one huge chapter but this one is already 8000 words long, so I had to break them up)! So hopefully you'll get at least two updates from me in the next few days!

SO, WARNING, there is a small two-week time jump in this chapter, and minor mentions of rape/assault. So please be aware of this if that is going to upset or trigger you.

ALSO, fun little Easter egg, I left a Game of Thrones reference in this chapter! If you can find it ten points to Gryffindor (or Slytherin the clearly superior house: P)!

Anyways, hope you all enjoy this chapter and as always, I love love love you!

-Fallen

P.S. Also a huge shout out to my amazing Beta MaraBlackwolf. She gives me life! J

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When Jane had started this mission, she'd felt almost excited- or as close to it as she could come nowadays- but now she wished she'd said no. She should never have let nostalgia take a hold of her. But that morning when Patterson had accidently revealed that Kurt and Ally were having a baby shower that she hadn't been invited to…

Well, she'd _wanted_ to pretend just for a moment that things were like they used to be. Back when Kurt looked at her in that way that made her insides heat up and a blush creep to her cheeks. Back when the team invited her out to drinks and smiled at her across the table. Back when she _mattered_.

And maybe she wanted a distraction from the fact that she would never get a baby shower of her own. Even if she lived long enough to reach that point, who would she invite? Her psychopathic mother? Her brother who barely even recognized her? The team? Ha! They could barely fucking look at her. Even Patterson would only come out of misplaced pity.

There would be no people, just her alone in an empty room full of sad decorations, surrounded by her own demons- and she was pretty sure they wouldn't eat a pretty pastel cake. She could almost paint the scene in her head; the beautiful bright decorations in direct conflict with the darkness pouring out from inside her. Red eyes leering from the corners of the room, swallowing the bright yellows of the squeaky-clean baby decorations.

So, suffice to say, when Patterson revealed their next mission and Jane was asked to go undercover with Weller, she didn't even hesitate. She ignored Patterson's look and dismissed the way Reade seemed to be almost arguing _against_ putting her at risk.

Not that he would, obviously- he'd been firmly on board with every other plan that had a likelihood of maiming his "teammate". But in the saddest part of her soul, she wished it were true.

Naz, of course, shut down all the conversation and got them refocused on the task at hand. So away they'd gone. Assuming the role of two criminals for hire, they'd met the others and readied themselves to move on the Summit to steal whatever item the buyer thought so valuable. Jane noticed right away how close the mousey female technician and their buyers right hand man seemed. She'd also noticed just how useless the man- Clive, as he so "suavely" told her- would be.

As the heist moved on and they were separated from the girl and left alone with Clive it took everything in Jane not to knock him out as his antics continued. She _almost_ punched Weller when he got the pleasure once the gig was up.

It should have ended there. But they'd stayed undercover and found, to their horror and disgust, that they'd helped to steal a _woman_ instead of an object. Having to stand there and listen to her helpless pleas made Jane's stomach turn. The small woman trapped between all those men sent her mind to places she'd prefer never to return to. Those memories were ever-present though, always clawing to get out, and it became a real concern that Jane might succumb to a panic attack in possibly the _worst_ possible surroundings.

She couldn't help remembering how helpless that made her feel, how weak it made her feel, and to think she'd fooled herself into thinking that she had it under control.

Funny how that works, isn't it?

She'd tried to reassure the victim, but she hadn't even gotten a few words out before being silenced by the buyer, who (in keeping with Jane's string of bad luck) turned out to be #8 on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted list. A point Kurt quickly reiterated as they watched the man walk away with his new possession.

Funny how men always seemed to turn women into objects they could acquire and control.

They were debating on what to do when Kurt tried to separate them. But Jane had seen right through him, even with the current state of affairs she knew how his mind worked, so she waited until he'd turned his back to hit him just hard enough to daze him.

She'd had plenty of reminders for one day. She clearly didn't mean anything to them.

Jane wasn't suicidal; she wouldn't die if she didn't have to. She wanted to live if only for her child. But Kurt had a life, he had people to come home to, people who relied on him. She reminded him of those facts before she knocked him out. She just couldn't let him put everything at risk. Anyway, he would be able to move faster, get help quicker than she could, and she knew without a doubt that she would last longer than he ever would.

Nothing they could do to her would be anything she hadn't dealt with before.

Kurt was just a sweet summer child, while Jane had survived too many harsh winters.

In hindsight, she realized she'd been crazy.

Now, staring down the barrel of a gun, Jane knew that she should never have placed herself in this position. But she refused to close her eyes; she wouldn't face her death like a coward. No, she stared right into the gunman's eyes and waited.

"Look, this bitch really thought I was going to shoot her," the man in front of her told the two holding her with a laugh before his gaze met hers again, "No, bitch, the boss will want to talk to you first."

Somehow, he managed to smile despite the blood dripping down his face from the nose she'd efficiently broken barely a minute before. Two of his companions lay somewhere behind them; at least she could say she'd given as good as she got. She'd managed to avoid getting hit anywhere in the abdomen but she knew she'd have a shiner… or two… in the morning.

The men holding her arms roughly dragged her out of the room and down a large hallway before practically throwing her into a room on their right. She looked up and managed to flash the victim- a petite doctor- what she hoped was a reassuring smile before a hand tugged her head around to look up at Nico Marconi.

He didn't seem surprised at all to see her there. "I thought I recognized you earlier, _Remi_ ," he practically spat the name at her, "but I couldn't be sure until just now. I'm surprised Shepherd let you this far off the leash."

Fear flashed through her mind for a moment before she reigned it in. Forcing herself to assume her Remi persona, she let all the light leave her eyes and twisted her face into a vicious mockery of a smile. "Oh Marconi, you really think Shepherd doesn't know I'm here? She sent me to see if you were still as pathetic as she remembered. Clearly I'll be able to tell her that her memory isn't going yet."

She watched anger flash across his face and darken his eyes; she relaxed herself just as his hand flashed out to slap her. Pain shot across her cheek, but not as bad as it could have been.

He hit her twice more before a smile slid back onto his face, "Well, I'll be sure to send your bitch of a mother my regards after I sell you to the highest bidder. I can imagine how many people want you dead… the creative ones will want to send you back to Shepherd after they've torn you to pieces."

He paused for a second, as if waiting for her to give him some rehearsed reaction, but he continued when it became clear she would say nothing. "You see, I stole our little doctor here to sell her to the highest bidder. I couldn't even begin to fathom how much people might be willing to pay for her, but with you here to sweeten the pot I might just make enough money to buy that island I've always dreamed of."

She let her lips widen, stretching to the point of discomfort as a small trail of blood leaked down her cheek- he liked to wear rings apparently. Sharp, ugly ones at that. "Go ahead, Marconi, sign your death warrant. But don't be surprised if the last thing you see is me smiling down at you."

Jane could tell that she'd rattled him by his slight hesitation before he gestured to the boys to tie her up. But he managed to muster up enough bluster to say a few more words before he left them. She tried not to let those vile, poisonous words crawl into her mind. Tried not to let them remind her of that room. Of the way cement rubbed her knees raw or the taste of blood and the way her scalp cried as it was pulled from behind. She tried to fight the words. But the words won.

The team

Reade had told them this was a bad idea from the beginning. He told them but they didn't listen. Too used to bowing to Naz's insane ideas, to letting their own demons stop them from helping, from stopping this suicidal journey they'd sent Jane on.

He'd always considered himself even-tempered and controlled, but when they realized that Jane and Kurt were missing it took everything in him not to beat Naz's face in. Everything felt raw, fresh, like a bleeding sore constantly being rubbed against. Coach Jones, Jane, Freddy- he couldn't get any of it out of his head. After that night in his apartment, he'd vowed to do better.

Reade couldn't go back in time and stop coach Jones. He couldn't save Freddy. Hell, he couldn't really save Jane- he'd failed her just like he'd failed all the others including himself. But he could help her. He could be her voice, since it didn't seem like anyone else would.

But here it was not even two weeks later and he'd failed her. They'd failed her.

Then that motherfucker in his cheap ass suit walked through the door, acting like Jane and Weller had gone off the reservation. Acting like they were traitors before he'd even gotten to a chance to hear the full story.

Reade could practically feel his blood beginning to boil. But he kept it together. He even tried to comfort Patterson; he knew that _she_ knew Jane's secret even if Patterson didn't know that _he_ knew, and he could tell it was tearing her apart. He wondered if she would tell the others, and he honestly couldn't tell if he thought she should or not. Jane had her own reasons to keep it a secret, and he thought maybe she'd had enough choices taken away from her.

If she didn't want to tell the team he sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to do it.

But he also wouldn't stop Patterson if she tried.

Of course, after they started interviewing Clive "the undercover Bond", and Emile "the fragile girl next door" he started to feel his fragile control slipping. They were no closer to finding Jane or Weller than they had been an hour ago and god only knew what could be happening to them in the meantime. After what felt like hours of back and forth between them and the two goons the truth began to come out.

Turned out "the girl next door" wasn't so innocent. But he couldn't stay to listen to the full story, he moved to get suited up.

He had to save her. He _had_ to.

As he sat in the car waiting for the others to suit up and join him, his nightmare from the previous night flashed through his head. He'd been at practice, they were finishing up, and coach Jones offered to take him home. He always did. Edgar's mom worked two jobs, and barely had enough time to sleep between them. Coach Jones had always been so eager to help him.

They'd gone back to the coach's house like normal; he'd always fed Edgar after practice before taking him home, but today they went down to the basement. As they walked down the steps he started to hear what sounded like quiet crying. A voice, so painstakingly familiar, brokenly begging to be let go. He tried to turn around, tried to ask the coach what was happening. But his feet kept moving him down the stairs, and his mouth stayed firmly in the smile he'd worn upstairs.

"Hurry along Edgar, I thought I'd show you a new play I had in mind, and you could tell me what you think," the coach told him as he they finally made it into the basement, and the smile never left his face as he gestured for Edgar to sit on the recliner in front of the TV.

The coach must have continued to talk but all Edgar could see was Jane. Beaten and bruised like in the hotel they'd found her in, but this time all the injuries were fresh. Her clothes were torn and tears streaked through the grime and blood on her face. Her eyes pleaded with him, and she begged him to help her, to stop him. But he could only sit and watch.

Every time he opened his mouth, casual conversation came out instead of the screams that had built up in his chest. He discussed new plays as he watched the coach do to Jane all the things he wondered every night might have been done to him.

It felt like hours passed trapped there on that recliner watching someone he'd once thought of as a friend, practically family, being tortured by a monster. All the while they talked as if nothing was happening.

"Reade? Hello, earth to Reade?" He blinked and saw Tasha waving her hands in front of his face from the seat beside him. "Thank god, looks like we got a live one here."

He glared, "Are you seriously joking right now? Jane and Weller could be dead or worse right now." He knew his words had come out too harsh, but he couldn't stop himself. Even the hurt on her face only made him feel a twitch of guilt.

"Jesus, do you really think I don't know that Reade?" Tasha practically spat at him, "I was just trying to lighten the mood. Honestly, thinking the worst won't help them anymore than joking will. We're on our way with the only lead we have so far, what more do you want?"

He had nothing to say, so he just shook his head and fastened his seat belt as they pulled away from headquarters. Nearly an hour later they were driving through the woods when Weller stumbled onto the path up ahead of them. Tasha nearly threw Reade out the window she slammed the breaks so hard, but he hardly noticed as he threw the car door open, his eyes already scanning for her.

"Where's Jane?" His question sounded almost anguished as he jogged towards Kurt, searching the trees around them for her. Somehow, she always seemed to be right there. But she was nowhere to be found.

Kurt's face twisted as he looked up at Reade from where he'd hunched over his knees, clearly winded. "She went after Marconi, I tried to go myself but she got the drop on me. I've been trying to get to you guys. But it looks like you found me first."

Reade stared down at Kurt in utter astonishment, "You mean Jane is out there by herself? You let her go by herself?"

"I didn't let her do anything, it's Jane, do you really think I could stop her?"

It almost seemed as if Kurt's words came from a distance and he thought somewhat detachedly that he felt sweat dripping down his forehead. Kurt's dismissive words replaying repeatedly in his head.

He'd just _left_ her. Now they had no idea where she was.

"Reade stop it! You're hurting him," Tasha screamed, scattering the fog in his brain as she yanked him backwards. It was only then that he realized he had Kurt's jacket fisted in his right hand and more surprisingly that he felt the throbbing in his left. It took him a minute to piece together the bruise forming on Kurt's cheek and the shocked look on his face. Without warning Reade released Kurt's jacket, nearly sending him sprawling.

"Reade what the hell is wrong with you?" Tasha demanded forcing him to look at her, "First you don't even want Jane to do the mission and now you nearly take Kurt's head off because they got separated?"

"I don't know what came over me," he whispered, ignoring the way his fists shook in anger and how desperately he wanted to _remember_ hitting the man he considered one of his best friends, "I'm sorry. But we need to get back, we need to find Jane."

"Why do you even care?" Tasha asked, confusion warring with the shock and anger on her face. Somehow the callous statement made Reade look at Tasha, a woman he trusted more than _anyone_ , in a new way. The pain of the realization made him wish he could _un_ see her.

He felt his face fall. God what had happened to them? When had they turned into the monsters? "Why _don't_ you?" He asked her simply, "Jane's our teammate, she's vulnerable, she's been through things that none of us can even begin to comprehend and yet we let her go on suicide missions every other day. She used to be our _friend_ , Tasha, and now you don't even seem to care that she might very well be dead or worse."

He didn't stay to see how they'd respond to his outburst, he just brushed passed them both and got in the car. They joined him a few second later, and the ride back to headquarters was tense and silent. From the office, Kurt could help them piece together the rest of the puzzle. But by then it was too late.

They got to watch Patterson pull up a video of the tiny doctor, and Jane, already looking worse for wear as they went live for sale. They watched a man approach Jane, the way his hand traveled up her body as he whispered in her ear. Worse, they got to watch her face freeze and her eyes go blank as her hands began to shake in her lap.

He doubted the man on the camera noticed, but he knew they did. He knew _he_ did.

But even more disturbing, he watched the way Jane collected herself, the way her hands slowly squeezed into fists until the tremors stopped. The way her face smoothed out and how she forced a smile onto her face as she spat back at the man words so full of promise even Reade felt a shiver run up his spine. He didn't want to imagine how many times she'd had to pull herself away from the brink in situations just like this one to do it so effortlessly.

What made his gut churn and his chest ache was that _he knew that smile_. Jane had worn that same forced, stoic, business-as-usual smile every day for weeks, and Reade finally, truly saw himself and their team in the role of abusers. That she could look at a piece of filth who was trading in human lives, a man who undoubtedly had vile, heinous plans for her with the same exact expression she used on the team… It was painful and disturbing in a way that he wasn't sure he could handle.

Reade realized she looked at them the same way she'd probably looked at the scum who had forced that pregnancy on her in the first place, and his body, torn between sobbing in remorse and vomiting from disgust, stood immobile, staring at the screen with the others.

How had he let this happen? How had he, who'd sworn to protect an serve, who'd worked SVU before coming here, have let this happened? Not noticed how scarred his teammate, fuck his _friend,_ had been when they got her back.

All of this made him remember all the dirty, awful, cruel things he'd said to her since her return. Or said to Tasha or Weller or Naz or anyone random person who asked about her when he had the chance. He used to be the one the victims trusted, people looked at him like a protector and yet now he didn't know if he trusted himself to be that person.

He just stared at the screen until it faded to black. His mind on overdrive, guilt and fear building inside him until he wasn't sure what to do.

Warring with them was a rage that had continued to build inside him over the last few weeks. Unnoticed at first but now he felt completely out of control. Unhinged by his own emotions. He didn't know what he'd do if they didn't find her. If they weren't able to save her this time.

Then they finally, finally broke the case wide open, concocting a plan so brilliantly insane it might actually work and he felt _hope_. When the cameras turned off and they were left with a blank screen he didn't feel fear. Against all the odds the plan had worked and they were on their way.

 _He would save her this time._

He would protect the people who needed him- even from each other. Maybe in some small way he'd start to save himself. Because if Jane could suffer so much, all with that smile on her face… if she could be that strong, then damn it- so could he. He could do it for her even if he couldn't do it for himself.

Even now she was being a better friend than he deserved.

Jane

Jane didn't know how long they'd been there when he wheeled the video camera into the room, but she estimated at least a few hours since she'd first stepped foot on the boat. At some point they'd returned to land, and they'd been unceremoniously shoved into a dirty room. When they'd been untied on the boat she'd thought about trying to fight but one look at the doctor- a few feet too far from her- stopped her. Her chance of success hadn't been great to start with but if she were going to save them both she'd have to wait for the right moment to strike.

"Now ladies, give us your best smile, bidding goes live in three, two, one," Marconi told them with a smile from behind the camera. Jane kept her face blank, staring straight into the camera with an expression she hoped said everything it needed to.

Marconi stepped closer to them, giving his audience a quick bit about the Doctor and her technology. But he only advanced closer to her until he stood beside her with his hand on her shoulder, "But the real treat, my friends, is right here. A true once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I have Shepherd's little attack dog Remi with me, and I know how many of you would love to have a little chat with our friend here. For these two… _lovely_ women… bidding starts at 2 million." As he spoke his hand traveled down her back, and she forced herself not to fidget but she could feel her hands start to shake. Then he leaned down to whisper in her ear, "Before we give you away, I'm going to make sure you and I get a little quality time together _Remi_ , and I'm going to show you all the skills I've been perfecting since the last time we met. I promise you, this time it's going to be you who walks away with new scars."

As he said it his hand slid across her waist and up to clutch her breast in a tight grip, but she barely felt it. Her mind already traveling at lightning speed to try and think of a way out of this situation. But her thoughts just kept circling back to a time when similar words had been spoken to her. Her hands started to shake in earnest, bile rose in her throat and she knew she'd lost control of her expression.

Jane had thought she'd gotten better, thought she'd grown stronger and that she could shove all these feelings and reactions away. But now she had to accept that she'd been lying to herself thinking that all of this could come out at night and stay away during the day, that it would stay compartmentalized in the little boxes she wanted it all to stay in. She'd ignored all the signs that pointed out her folly, but now here she was.

Vulnerable because she had chosen to pretend.

His hand slid away as he moved to leave the room, "We'll be back soon ladies, enjoy your stay until then."

By the time he turned to give them one last twisted smile her hands were clenched into fists and her face wore its old expression. She may be hurting more than she wanted to admit, but between Shepherd and _him_ she'd learned to regain control before anyone could use her lack of control to hurt her further.

"Just wait Marconi, one day soon I'm going to be out of this room, and I'll find you. You've seen what I can do, and I promise you this… I'll repay every petty little thing you've done today a thousand-fold. I won't stop until you're begging for death and even then, I'll make you lay there in a pool of your own vomit, blood and tears listening to you beg until your throat's too raw to make a sound. Maybe then I'll show you the same mercy you've shown us today. So, you know… thanks for giving me a reason to stretch." She made sure to give her best Remi smile at the end of it, and she let herself enjoy the genuine flash of fear that skirted across his face even as his men hustled him out of the room.

But the second the door shut and the camera turned off all her bluster vanished. She deflated like a balloon, falling limply against the bindings that held her, trying her best to breath even though it felt like someone was sitting on her chest.

"Are you okay?" A soft female voice broke her away from her thoughts.

She forced herself to smile at the woman beside her; it was time to get out of here. "Yes, are you okay? I have a plan to get us out of here but I'm going to need you to help me. Do you think you can do that?"

The woman looked apprehensive for a second, but she nodded, and her voice held a determination Jane hadn't expected from the dainty woman. "I can help, what do you need me to do?"

Jane had to admire the woman's ability to maintain her composure; she knew for a fact that she had to be terrified. With a soft voice she explained her plan, she knew they had a limited window of time to get the plan ironed out.

She worked herself free of the bindings on her hands, and then worked on the ones on her ankles. She wanted to free the doctor too but she knew the bonds needed to stay on until after. The next time the men entered the room Jane was ready, her bindings back in place exactly as the men had left them.

"Well ladies, it's your lucky day, you've been bought for forty million," Marconi told them with a little smile on his face, "The men here will get you ready, I'm going to the jeep, I want to get the fuck out of here as soon as the other half is here. Have her," he gestured to Jane, "brought to me. I want to say a few last words before we give her away to her new owner."

With that he left and the dance began. Cheng the doctor had been silent throughout, her cheeks pinched into redness by Jane were wet with sweat and tears. "Please," she begged the larger man, "I don't feel good."

Cheng began to quiver, then shake, and Jane let a few tears leak down her face as she cried at the men, "Please, you have to help her, she's having some sort of seizure."

The doctor did a damn good job acting, and immediately the two hulking men went over to her, putting away their guns and turning their backs to Jane as they went. She shook loose her restraints, and went on the attack. In less than a minute she had both men disabled- one of them had tried to grab the doctor, and Jane hadn't even thought- she shot him square in the face. The sight of his dirty hands touching the other woman's soft white skin was enough to send her over the edge.

She spared the other one, but she wished as they snuck out of the room and down a hallway that she'd shot him instead of tying him up and gagging him. No, perhaps violence didn't solve everything, but sometimes it just _felt good_.

Two more men stood between them and the door out of there; she took care of them with the same brutal efficiency as the others.

"Now, I need you to listen, we don't stand a chance of getting out of here on foot, we're going to get need to get to Marconi's jeep. So, I'm going to need you to be strong." She handed the woman one of the thugs discarded guns, even as she stole all the ammo she could find, "If something happens just remember to point and squeeze the trigger. Remember, _squeeze,_ don't pull. It shouldn't come to that but if it does… don't go down without a fight."

The woman nodded as they slid out the door and into the open.

Jane raced across the small open space and behind a large tree. Two men were hanging out at the road just a little beyond them, and she knew she'd have to take them all out one by one to get to Marconi and his jeep. Today she found that the idea of killing these men didn't even bother her- they'd been ready to sell an innocent woman into slavery, all for money, and who knows what they would have done to either of them if they'd had the chance. No, these men deserved to die.

For this cause, Jane wouldn't mind getting her hands dirty. Her mind was long past "due process". She'd been fighting the panic attack for too long, the only thing in her mind was how to stay safe, how to keep anyone from touching them.

From touching her again.

"Alright, Doctor, you're with me, I can't keep you safe from here, so I'm going to need you to focus and follow me. Stay behind me and stay quiet. Don't take the safety off unless you mean to use the gun, and don't point it at _anything_ you don't want holes in. Are we clear?"

The doctor nodded, her small face grim, but her eyes held a fire Jane recognized. This woman didn't want to be a victim any more than she did.

So, they began their dance with death as they made their way towards the jeep. Jane managed to surprise one man and snap his neck before she shot the other. She traded her hand gun for their machine gun and they continued their way. She'd made it about half way to the jeep when she began to hear gun fire. For a second a smile crossed her face; obviously Kurt had managed to get back to the team.

She stopped, "Doctor, that should be the FBI, you have a choice. You can stay here where it's safe until they come get you or you can come the rest of the way with me. I can't guarantee your safety if you come with me, so you have to decide what you think is the best for you."

Jane didn't _want_ to leave the doctor, but she wouldn't take her choice away. She would never do that if she had the option.

The doctor looked at her then back in the direction of the gunfire, and when their eyes met again Jane saw determination, "I will go with you."

Jane nodded, and gestured for the doctor to follow her again as they crept down the path closer and closer by the second to Marconi. They wouldn't need to steal his jeep anymore but Jane wanted the satisfaction of putting that bastard in cuffs. Pathetic monsters of men like him deserved to rot in prison. They _deserved_ worse but Jane knew he wouldn't get that. Not for a long while.

The gunfire had begun to draw closer, and by the time they'd reached Marconi she knew backup couldn't be far behind. She stationed them at the building while she scoped out the situation. Marconi had three men surrounding him as they loaded the jeep. She liked the anxious fear that seemed to grip him. He knew the noose was tightening around his neck. It might have been illusion or hallucination, but for a moment the bloodlust made it feel like Remi was scratching at the back of her brain.

She heard something behind them, and swung around confidently with her gun while she stepped in front of the doctor in one smooth motion. She lowered her gun just as quickly when she saw Naz and Kurt step out from the woods behind them.

"About time you guys showed up, I was beginning to think it'd be a two-woman party," Jane joked, trying to create some levity to their situation.

Kurt gave her a small smile, "Glad to see you're alright, we weren't sure what we'd find when we got here."

Naz merely nodded at her, before speaking to the doctor, "Ma'am are you alright?"

"Yes, she has kept me safe," the doctor replied with a small smile.

"Well, I'd love to play catch up, but if we're going to get Marconi now's the time," Jane told them, as she moved to step out from behind the building. She'd relish the look of shock on Marconi's face for some time.

Today she'd gotten to defeat a monster.

When she stepped forward to wrap the handcuffs Kurt had thrown her way around his wrists she made sure to lean forward and whisper in his ear, "Don't worry Marconi, I have friends in prison who will just love the chance to meet you."

He started to sputter as she dragged him towards the car, "She's a traitor you know," he shouted at Kurt and Naz as she dragged him towards the car.

But when no one paid him any mind he shut up. She'd just gotten him into the car, when she felt a hand grab her shoulder. Normally that movement would have made her tense and react, but something about the touch seemed unusually gentle, even caring.

She turned and saw Reade standing behind her, something in his eyes that she just couldn't quite identify. "Jane, are you alright?"

It took her a second to gather a response. "I'm fine," she told him with something she hoped resembled a smile, "we got the bad guy and we saved the girl."

When she forced the smile for him, Reade jerked slightly, like he'd been hit in the stomach. He looked at her, his eyes seeming to search hers for something he didn't find, and she saw what looked like a trace of red around his eyes, as though he'd been fighting tears. "I'm sorry it took us so long to get here Jane, Weller never should have let you go alone."

Now she really did feel confused, "If he hadn't you all never would have found us in time, I would have done the same thing if our situations were reversed. I made my decision, I'm not sure why we're even having this discussion, unless… you think I did something wrong?" She let the ' _why would you care'_ hang unsaid between them.

"Jane look I-" Whatever he was going to say was lost between them as Kurt and the others approached. Little was said after they all got into the SUV and headed back towards headquarters. She'd ignored Kurt's offer to have her seen by a paramedic. She hadn't taken any injures that required more than some ice and she didn't want _anyone_ she didn't know touching her. Hell, she wasn't thrilled with people she _did_ know touching her.

By the time they got back to the FBI headquarters it took everything in her not to book it out of the car. The whole team seemed tense; Reade and Kurt were having some sort of silent feud for which Zapata seemed to blame Jane for, and Naz was glaring out the window unhappily. She could have tried to figure it all out, but honestly, she didn't care.

She wanted to go home and paint. A few days ago, she'd decided rather spur of the moment to follow through with some of Dr. Borden's advice and get some art supplies. By the end of the day she'd spent nearly two grand of the FBI's money to get her paints, oils, pencils, paper, canvas and other miscellaneous supplies.

Now she wanted to paint. To let go of some of the things inside her that threatened to eat her alive. She'd tried so hard to talk to Borden, to be better, but every time the subject came around to anything serious her throat seemed to close up. She'd spend the whole hour trying to force herself to speak words that just wouldn't come out.

Borden had recommended a journal, a diary, one she needn't share with him. Or to return to the art she had so loved before. At the time she'd dismissed it, but after today she had to do something. She'd been able to hide or move past things before. But today flashbacks had threatened to pull her under and never let her go.

She let those thoughts carry her through the building and up to their floor. Distracting her from the elevator and the instinctual fear that small enclosed spaces carried for her now. It wasn't until the elevator dinged, and she found herself with an armful of Patterson that she came back to the present situation.

"Oh my god Jane, I'm so glad you're okay, I was so worried," Patterson tearfully proclaimed as she pulled back just for a second before burying her face back in Jane's neck. Jane awkwardly patted the woman's back as she watched the rest of the team inch away from them. Naz got called away to talk with the district attorney she recognized from Mayfair's case.

What was he doing here?

A few minutes passed before Patterson extracted herself from Jane's arms, her hand coming up to gently touch the bruises she knew littered her face. "Jane are you okay? Really?"

To her own surprise, something about the gentle touch and the true concern she saw in the blonde's eye made her eyes water and her throat tighten. She blinked away the tears, forcing herself to smile. "I'm fine Patterson, nothing but a few bruises," she leaned a little closer, "The baby's fine too, no one hit me there. You didn't need to be worried. I did my job, and we got out of there safe."

A strange look came over Patterson's face, "Jane I don't care if you finished the job, I was worried about you because I care about you and the baby. Please be more careful, I don't want anything to happen to either of you."

"You know I can't make those promises, Patterson." She paused to brush a lock of hair away from the other woman's eyes so her voice wouldn't sound teary. "I'm going to try but you know as well as I do that I'm nothing but a pawn to be sacrificed in this chess game."

Those words seemed to upset the blonde, and new tears formed in her eyes, "Oh Jane."

She had to turn away. "I have to go write my report, call me if you make any progress on our little project, okay?"

A hand on her elbow stopped her from moving, "Jane, that's what I wanted to tell you before the case, I did it. My part's done, if you-know-who can get the rest together then we're ready for it. He and I have been exchanging emails… proves how much I love you… I sent my part to him, if he's right he'll have it all delivered to you within the next two nights."

Jane turned back to stare at her, "You're serious?"

Her life _never_ worked out like this, today had ended well and now success was within arm's reach.

Patterson nodded, "I am."

Jane actually smiled at her. "That's the best news I've heard in weeks, truly. But I really do need to go do those reports Patterson, so you're going to have to let me go."

The blonde actually blushed for a second before releasing Jane's elbow, "Just remember what I said Jane, I meant it, I care. I want to see you make it out of this in one piece."

Jane didn't reply, she couldn't, too many strange things happening with her team today. She just wanted to finish her reports and go. She'd just made it to her desk and started to get to work when Kurt appeared in front of her. She barely suppressed a sigh. Just what she needed- another reprimand, another reminder about her insignificance from the _one_ person who used to think she was the most important.

"Look, Weller, whatever you're going to say, can you just not? I already know how you feel about me, and how little I can do to change it. I just want to finish my report and go home." She cut him off before he could start in on her, and for once she let the weariness she felt leak into her voice. Maybe for once he'd find it within himself to have a little pity on her, she thought the bruises and small cuts littering her face might help.

Instead, he seemed to steel himself, her words strengthening whatever bluster caused him to come over, "Look Jane, I know I haven't been the easiest person to work with since you got back," _probably the world's greatest understatement_ , she thought rather bitterly, "but what you said back there, it isn't true. I never thought I'd say this again after everything but I do care what happens to you. If you had died today I don't know what I would have done."

She tried not to let the reminder of what she'd done hurt her, because of course he'd have to remind her that she didn't _deserve_ his care. He'd clearly had to overcome so _very, very much_ to find a way to care about her again. So, she didn't bother to hide her biting sarcasm, "Form 22-D. Death of an asset in the line of duty. It's way easier than when an actual employee dies, no retirement plan to distribute."

He didn't seem to know what to say to that, "Jane-I-we-no one here thinks of you as an asset, you know that right?"

Now she laughed, "Are you serious? I have no idea how you can say that to me with a straight face. But you know what, this is not what you came over here for, so what do you want Kurt? I have paperwork to do."

She only just resisted the urge to turn back to her computer and dismiss him.

It took him a second, but he seemed to gather himself enough to say whatever the hell he wanted to say,"So, I think you should come tonight, you deserve to be there with us, and I'm sorry I didn't mention it to you before," his hand came up to rub the back of his neck, as he looked at her expectantly.

She shook her head, "You don't have to do that, you didn't want me there to begin with and nothing's really changed since them." God, what was up with her coworkers today? They didn't have to pretend to like her or care to ensure that she did her job. Had she not been doing everything they'd asked of her and more since her return? She didn't know if she could handle these manipulations. She'd already been beaten today, the thought of an invitation to a party that would only make her anxiety worse presented as some kind of reward? Maybe getting shot would have been a better idea.

"Jane, please, come, I want you there, hell Allie wants you there too. Don't make me beg okay, because I will." He gave her some version of a sincere smile, and she was finally at the point where she'd agree to anything to make him leave. She didn't want him to smile at her anymore. Not when he was sleeping with Naz, and had spent the last months reminding her at every opportunity that he didn't think her better than the scum at the bottom of his feet.

She didn't know when kindness had become worse than pain but it had.

"Fine," she replied, and listened attentively as he told her the details. Then he finally wandered away and left her to finish her report. It took her a little under an hour, and then she ducked away from her desk. She made sure to avoid everyone as she made her way to the stairs, and eventually to the parking garage where her detail met her. Today she only recognized John; he'd been new to the detail a few weeks before the CIA had taken her. He was kind to her but she had no real connection to him.

For once she was glad, she didn't want to have to deal with the boy's reactions to her face right now. To her surprise, the silence during the ride to her safe house bothered her more than she expected; without the boy's cheerful banter and their pop culture references the trip seemed to last forever.

By the time they reached the house, she practically ran out of the car and into the relative security of her safe house. She leaned against the door as she closed it, sealing her within the barren emptiness the house comprised.

She leaned there breathing against the door for some time, trying to collect her thoughts and analyze the day she'd had. But she came no closer to untangling the web of emotion the day had created. Instead all the thoughts she'd pushed aside seemed to scream at her all at once. Each one begging to be heard until it just became a cacophony of noise.

The flashbacks triggered by Marconi, her carelessness, Reade's sudden protectiveness, Weller's cruelty and kindness all in one, Patterson's concern, the men she'd killed, Marconi's face when she cuffed him, Patterson's news, the idea that Sandstorm may be ending. She couldn't handle it.

Then the stupid baby shower. The thing her mind kept cycling back to. First the slight of not being invited, the isolation and desolation that caused within her. The cruelty of reality, the realization she would never have the life where such a thing was afforded to her. Finally, the invitation that came with an unwanted unloading of Kurt's conflicted feelings.

"What am I supposed to do, little one?" She asked her stomach, touching the small bump that had seemly popped up out of nowhere a few days ago. She didn't know how much longer she could hide this.

She needed to end this game, and soon.

"No advice for your mom, huh? It's okay, no one else wants to talk to me either," she confided with a sad laugh, and for some reason tears came to her eyes. "I don't deserve you," she whispered sliding down the door, her arms clutched around her abdomen. "I could have lost you today, God, I could have lost you today."

Suddenly, pathetically, she was sobbing again, "I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry, I wish I could promise you I'd be better," she whispered between sobs, "but I can't, I can't even promise to protect you. I'm no better than Shepherd…"

She allowed herself a few more moments of weakness, apologizing to the tiny soul growing inside her, before she forced herself to stop. To collect herself. Pushing down the emotions rolling around inside her and forcing herself to her feet.

She _made herself_ walk into the kitchen, _made herself_ get some ice and press it to the bruises on her face. _Made herself_ eat a meal and eat one of the smoothies that Mark had recommended she try making then freezing. She'd found she quite liked them and the convenience they posed. Mechanically she drank two bottles of water and polished off a single banana.

The food tasted like ash in her mouth, and her stomach threatened to rebel, but she forced herself to keep it down. She couldn't promise protection but she would do everything else she needed to in order to provide for her child.

She would. Even if it was through sheer willpower.

Fed, she headed upstairs and took a shower, ignoring the shattered mirror and the thousand broken reflections of herself as she stepped out. She threw on some clothes, tried to cover some of the more oblivious bruises with makeup and then forced herself to leave the safety the isolation promised her.

And oh, as she thought of her destination, she desperately wished she could still drink.

The journey to Allie's apartment seemed to take hours, but it was only a few minutes. Jane stood across the street for a while, watching people stream into the building. She wasn't sure if she could make herself follow them. To force herself to spend a night on the edges of someone else's happy ending. Then again, she always did love self-flagellation. Just another way to remind herself that she didn't belong in their world.

Monsters never did.

"Jane, you coming in?" Reade's voice startled her, causing her heart to pound and her breath to quicken.

"Shit, I didn't scare you, did I?"

She shook her head, though her heart refused to slow. "No, just startled me a little, you okay? You seem a little shaken up."

Something in his eyes seemed to darken; Jane was all too familiar with the look of someone with a secret they didn't want to share, "Just some stuff about the Jones case, but nothing you'd want to hear."

She shrugged, "I'm sorry, I know that's been hard for you."

He nodded, and they stood in silence for a few moments before he spoke again, "So, are you going up?"

"Does it matter if I do?" She asked him honestly.

He looked at her then, his eyes seeming to look right through her. "I think it would mean a lot to Kurt and Allie if you came. But I could understand if you decided not to." Those last words seemed so loaded, but she couldn't decipher what was behind them. Aside from the obvious, of course.

"I know I should, but I'm not sure I want to." For some reason she told him the truth. It had been some time since she'd had a conversation that wasn't fraught with double meanings.

"Seems pretty understandable, but we could go up together," he asked, "that way you don't have to walk in alone."

"Why do you care if I go in alone?" She was honestly curious; after all, none of them- Reade included- had cared if she walked alone all these months. As far as she could tell nothing had changed between them to cause this sudden attention.

He looked away, staring at the apartment across the street, "To be honest Jane, some things recently forced me to examine how I've been treating you. We used to be friends, maybe even family, and I abandoned you when you needed me most. I can't change what I've done, but maybe I can start to fix things between us."

She didn't know what to say to that, she just looked at him, waiting for him to look at her and then she searched his face for a sign of dishonesty. She kept waiting for Zapata to fly out of the darkness and reveal this as some cruel trick, even while part of her wanted to jump into his arms and cry on him.

"I'm sorry Jane, I know you won't believe me, hell I wouldn't believe me. But I am serious, and I hope you'll let me prove it to you." He looked her dead in the eyes at the end, and held her gaze. She thought she could see sincerity there. But how could she believe him? Her mind just replayed all the instances of cruelty, all the hurtful words spoken, the casual movements and motions that had shown her she no longer had a place within the team.

She broke their eye contact, her eyes finding the pavement in front of them, tracing the breaks like some crazy puzzle, "I-I don't know Reade, but maybe we should go in."

She saw him nod out of the corner of her eyes, "Okay, Jane, but I promise I'm going to do better. You'll see."

Then he started walking, waiting for a second for her to catch up and together they walked across the street and into the apartment building. Reade just opened the door and gestured for Jane to go in. Immediately her eyes found the happy couple, surrounded by friends and oozing a happiness she immediately felt envious of. Untainted and beautiful, she wanted to paint it, to show them what she saw here.

But she didn't know if she could. Even just standing there magnified the emptiness, the bleakness inside her. She had no happiness, not truly, even the happiness her child brought her was tainted by her life. By the things that had happened to her.

She wandered away from Reade, wanting some distance from whatever it was that had happened outside, and found herself a non-alcoholic beer to sip so she would fit in. Then she found a nice corner to hide in. She watched Kurt vanish, followed by Naz, and part of her heart panged. But she forced it down, surveilling the rest of the room.

She watched Zapata arrive, the way Reade rushed to her and embraced her, relief in every inch of his posture.

Yes, they were keeping a secret, and she wondered what it was.

To her right, Patterson and Borden sat among a small circle of strangers. They looked so happy, their postures relaxed and their smiles unstoppable. Everyone here had a place. Everyone here seemed to fit in to this pretty picture. _Everyone but her_.

She felt like a wraith, or like the witch in that movie the boys had practically forced her to watch when they realized she hadn't seen any "Disney" movies. Except she would lay no curse upon this baby's head. But still she thought it a fitting comparison. Her darkness had no place among them, she could only taint this joyful event and she didn't know if she ever would fit in here.

 _She shouldn't have come_.

But she forced herself to stay, to watch them cut the cake. To see the happiness blossom on their faces as it revealed they were having a girl. She stayed to listen to the congratulations, to see the answering happiness ring across every face in the room.

It all made her feel like an imposter. Someone as dirty and fucked up as her could only ruin this.

She needed to leave.

So, she did.

She crept out like a criminal and found her way down to the street. She forced her feet to make their way back towards her safe house, though she wished they could take her home. Not that she knew where such a place existed.

She'd barely even opened the door when her phone lit up, a text from Roman telling her they needed her. He'd texted her an address to meet him at. She thought about texting the team, or Rich. But she didn't. She couldn't.

Instead she entered the house, and then waited until she knew the detail would trust her to be in for the night. Then she snuck out, made her way to the car that she'd stowed a few blocks from her place, and left. Amazing how this felt more like home, more natural than anything else.

She wasn't sure what that meant.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 A not so brief reminder

Hey my beautiful readers!

Thank you again for making me the happiest author in the freaking world! Your guy's support, and interest in my stories never fails to make my heart skip a beat! However, you may HATE me after this but I promise you it's not the end yet!

So until next time, and with all the love in the world,

-Fallen

P.S. As always I thank my amazing beta reader Marablackwolf, she is literally a god sent! She keeps the material fresh and helps dig deeper & darker thoughts right out of my head! She's the one to thank for some of the amazing plot twists happening in this story!

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The car ride passed uneventfully, and after twenty minutes Jane pulled up in front of a small gas station. She parked her car in a shadowy corner and settled down to wait. She didn't have to wait long, however- Roman materialized at her side barely fifteen minutes after she arrived, and she was inexplicably proud of his ability to sneak up on her.

"Come with me," he told her as he reached forward to grab her hand, pulling her into the shadows to a car parked just a few spaces from her own. When they reached it, he wrapped her in a small hug before he gestured for her to get in the passenger side. That tiny embrace held more honest love than she'd felt in months- simultaneously exotic and familiar- and the weakest part of her never wanted to let go.

She paused for a second, "What, no bag over my head today?"

Roman actually _smiled_ at her as he got in, and the expression made his fierce countenance suddenly sweet and boyish, and that small, needy part of Jane (that she'd secretly started thinking of as 'Remi', perhaps in some misguided attempt to heal and humanize that forgotten part of herself) wanted to hug him and kiss his cheeks. "No, Shepherd has decided it's a precaution that we no longer need to utilize. You've more than proven yourself in the last few months, and now we're almost to the end."

"What do you mean?" Jane asked as she slid into her seat, buckling herself in and turning on the heated seats. The weather had begun to get cold again, and she just couldn't stand it. She'd never been able to get warm since her time with the CIA, and she hated the reminder of another thing _he_ had taken from her. She remembered the first time she saw snow, and the delight she felt at the first cold touch of winter _before._ But now it only made her bones ache, and her scars tighten. Creating an ungodly amount of pain and frustration with the first movements she made everything she exposed herself to the cold.

Roman just smiled at her. "You'll see. Shepherd has one last mission for us, and it's important. We _cannot_ fail."

"Have we ever?" She tried to sound playful, but in truth dread filled her to the brim. With Sandstorm, she had to be _their Remi_ , not the one she was building in her head. They expected her to give in to each awful impulse that snuck beneath her skin. She had to kill- not just for the mission, but to _save her little brother_.

Besides her baby and despite her missing memories, Roman meant more to her than anything in her life. Even with the mental and emotional distance, despite whatever hells they'd gone through, (or perhaps because of them) the desire to protect him burned in her veins. Jane truly did believe _herself_ beyond repair or salvation, but while his hands may have been unclean, Roman's soul was pure and beautiful, and Jane was ferociously determined to keep it that way. She'd made progress; he hadn't killed in three missions, not even when doing so would have made things easier.

She wished she could say her own hands were that clean. She tried to ignore the way the words seemed to conjour blood beneath her fingertips. She found it hard to look away as her hands were coated in it, covered in the thick, red liquid. Sometimes it bothered her that no one else could see it, the way the blood so often smothered her pale white skin. But she'd begun to understand that it was some godly punishment.

Penance for the wrongs she committed.

His laugh brought her back, and a smile pulled at her lips at the sound. "You're right Jane, let's hope you're right about tonight."

She smiled at him, and they spend the rest of the journey in comfortable, contented peace. At least with Roman she didn't have to fake her smiles as hard; she genuinely loved him, more than she could ever express or even understand. Even if he only loved the shadow of who she used to be.

She couldn't exactly be choosey with it.

Anyway, she needed him in a good mood, needed him to trust her more than ever... because sitting in the stitching of her jacket was a tracker that Rich had delivered to her just a few days prior.

The start of her plan was coming together. Being trusted with the location of their base was only a bonus. Now she would have concrete proof, a map to exactly where it lay and she would use it to bring the walls down around them.

Her own family. She would destroy her own family.

She had to, because it was the right thing to do. Because she _couldn't_ raise a child in the world Shepherd wanted to create.

Monsters defeating monsters. A bitter sort of humor lay in those words. But there was nobody better suited to the job. Normal people, the good people that she saw every day- they didn't have the ability to beat an adversary they weren't even able to understand. They couldn't predict Shepherd because they were too _good_. Too good to understand the inner workings of evil.

Jane used to think she could be one of them. One of the good people. But now she understood.

She didn't have that problem because she, at her core, was no different from Shepard.. As much as she tried to be a good person, she was still a creature of the dark, as the team so often reminded her- a monster bred and brainwashed by other monsters. She was utterly ideal for this job. No one else had been shaped and created by evil incarnate. The team often believe it had started with Sheperd for her, but she'd seen her memories. Shepard had only taken the fledgling monster and grown her to be real. Then _he_ had taken and polluted the good that had grown inside her away from Sheperd's influence. One last murder of the innocence to torment her already broken soul.

She let her mind wrestle with those thoughts, and the quiet music lulled her into a trance as mile after mile blurred together. They were easily two hours outside of the city. She would have to time everything down to the second to ensure that her plan worked.

As they neared their destination, her heart started to beat just a little harder, adrenaline sparking in her veins. The compound came into sight, the sentries sending her smiles. How funny that months ago they wouldn't even look at her. Now Remi had reappeared amongst their ranks. Trusted and loved as she had been years ago. Funnier still that she would use that very sentiment to crush them beneath her boot. All of Shepherd's loyal soldiers would be dead or in prison before the end of the month.

That very thought made her answering smiles sincerer than she thought they'd ever been.

"Don't encourage them Jane, half of them are already half way in love with you," Roman told her sternly, though laughter lit up his eyes.

She just smirked, "Who's to say I don't like the attention?"

"You just like feeling powerful, it has nothing to do with liking their attention," Roman replied, his eyes just a hair more serious than they were before.

Jane didn't doubt Roman for a second; she knew that power was exactly what drove Remi to encourage the attention. Remi had been a woman who'd grown to love power. Jane knew that some part of that woman had been good too- but it had been so corrupted. She wondered what the old Remi would think of who she'd become. Yet Roman _loved_ Remi, and Jane felt in every cell of her body that she had loved Roman with an intensity that bordered on obsession.

No, Remi couldn't have been all bad, not when Roman looked at her with such love- even after she'd allowed herself to forget him. She had been an abused child once, powerless to protect herself or her parents, and she'd seen her own weakness result in pain and anguish for Ian, the only person she'd loved in the world. With depth of the love Jane felt for Roman even _after_ the ZIP, she could see how and why Remi had embraced her path so fully.

There was nothing Jane wouldn't do to protect her baby, and Roman had been every bit as vital to Remi. For the first time, Jane fully realized that Remi was more than some boogeyman from her past- she'd been a _victim_. She had done terrible things, certainly, but she wasn't a robot, she was a person with fears, dreams and emotions. How many of the atrocities Remi committed had happened because she was terrified and simply trying to protect her brother in the only way she could be sure would work?

Distantly she thought of the coin, the first memory that had brought htem back together. Remi had killed for that coin, unflinchly, because someone had hurt her brother. Not just marking his beautiful face, but wounding his soul.

That memory had given her the first glimpse into what Remi had been before the _orphanage,_ before Sheperd, before the military, and the secrets and most importantly the lies had begun. She wondered if Ian would have survived without her. She often doubted it, it hadn't been until she left him that he truly hardened. He'd always had a goodness, a weakness as Sheperd often called it, inside him. Soemthing that stopped him from doing the dark deeds that Sheperd reserved for her favorite wolf. But Jane understood now, in some part of her Remi did them so Roman didn't have to.

So no, Remi wasn't a bad memory or a bridge to be burned, she was still part of Jane. She had to stop being ashamed of that if she wanted to heal.

They parked and got out, Roman leading his sister into the now familiar building. They were headed straight for Shepherd's private office, and Jane felt her spine straightening even further, muscles tensing in preparation for what she would find there.

The door opened and they stepped in, Jane's eyes finding Shepherd's immediately. Her mother sat behind her desk, focused on paperwork, but the second they entered she set her pen down.

A smile stretched her lips, but her eyes remained as cold as ever. "My beautiful children, come home to me again."

As the woman stood and walked over to hug her, Jane forced herself to return the embrace with equal enthusiasm, though it made her stomach ache. She forced herself to look Shepherd in the eyes as the woman cooed over her "beloved daughter's" bruises. "Now tell me, daughter, what do you want done with Marconi? The little snake absolutely _cannot_ be allowed to get away with touching you without my permission."

Jane didn't bother to hide her surprise, ignoring Roman's look- he clearly hadn't been informed of the circumstances surrounding Jane's injuries. Shepherd raised an eyebrow, her tone almost amused as she chided Jane. "Come now, Remi, did you think my contacts wouldn't inform me that someone was selling my only daughter like some prized cattle?"

"I didn't think it would concern you, I escaped and Marconi will get his due," Jane replied nonchalantly. Remi would never have expected her mother to get involved with a problem she or Roman had already handled. That thought, the absolute truth in it, made Jane's heart ache, and again she thought of that small, frightened, lonely part of herself. There was no doubt that Remi had done terrible things, but Remi wasn't created in a vacuum. She was what her family and the people around her had made her. For a moment, instead of wanting even the memory of Remi to be buried, Jane wanted to _protect_ her. Remi had just been a child, as innocent as the baby resting in Jane's belly.

Shepherd smiled, and this time it touched her eyes; another test passed. "Always so smart, my Remi, and normally I'd agree. However, we are about to become the Kings and Queens of this world, which changes things. How could I let such an insult go when we are this close to the finish line? Attacking you, trying to steal and sell my daughter… that is unacceptable and could damage your credibility- as well as Roman's and my own. So, tell me, what should we do with him?"

Jane had to hide her frown, there lay the truth of the matter, Sheperd still didn't care about her or Roman. She cared about her credibility, her image, she didn't know why she felt surprised. Maybe now that she lay so close to motherhood herself she couldn't imagine how a parent could be so distant so removed. But she forced herself to visually ponder the question.

What would Remi want done to him? She looked briefly at her brother and saw the rage simmering in his eyes. She knew he would bloody her hands for her if she asked, but she didn't want to ask- certainly not Roman. She had to protect him. But still, she forced a smile to spread across her cheeks. "He's nothing but a dog, neuter him and show him what we do to animals who bite their masters."

She should feel happy at the thought of a person like Marconi getting a fitting punishment for the crimes she had no doubt he'd committed, but she didn't. She just wanted this show to end. To stop playing this game with her mother and the FBI. She was so very _tired_. Everyone wanted to use Jane- as a soldier, as a spy, as a weapon, as an assassin. Or, in the case of the FBI, as disposable bait and a scapegoat for all their woes.

Shepherd nodded, another smile snaking its way across her lips before she returned to her desk. "Well, now that's taken care of, let's get to the more critical issues at hand. We are merely two weeks away from the beginning of our ascension, and there is just one obstacle in our way."

Jane forced herself to move closer, Roman lingering behind her shoulder, forcing her expression to convey trust and eagerness as she waited to hear what her mother had in store for them.

"A once loyal soldier has turned his back on us, and in doing so he stole a piece of technology that we need to finish this. He's apparently been working for another smaller group, who thinks that they can overthrow us. He's going to be meeting with the leaders of that group tonight to give them _my_ technology. You will retrieve my property and eliminate the entire group. I want scorched earth policy. We cannot allow our enemies the opportunity to harm us or make us appear weak. Let them be a warning to any others who might interfere. Are we understood?" Shepherd watched them as she gave orders, her green eyes alight with the kind of fervor that reminded Jane of every villain she'd ever watched on screen.

But still she nodded, "Of course, any traitor to our cause deserves to die."

Behind her Roman voiced his own agreement, and then Shepherd gave them a packet with the necessary details. The siblings were sent to the armory to gear up, and then they stopped by the mess to grab some fuel. They'd be staking out the meeting location for the rest of the night, waiting for the meeting to begin.

Waiting to start the massacre.

Jane tried not to think of the fact that she and her brother were being sent like assassins into the night. She'd kept Roman's hands so clean- at the expense of her own- and now all her progress would be _lost_.

But she couldn't afford to dwell on it.

Just one more piece of her soul to give away to stop Sandstorm. To stop her mother (though that term felt obscene) from turning the whole world- her baby's world- into a blood bath of chaos and despair.

A small price to pay, or so Naz would say.

With everything gathered they moved to leave, and Jane stopped to go to the bathroom, shooting a short text to Naz to apprise her of the situation. Then she returned to Roman's side- one of the few places she felt like she belonged- and together they left the compound.

They had about four hours to kill before the meeting was supposed to begin.

The meeting ended up being about an hour drive from the compound, and Jane found herself unable to stay awake for the drive. It had been a long day, and growing a baby tended to take it out of you.

 _In her dream, she found herself back in the cabin, tied to the chair with Marconi standing before her, but this time it was only the two of them. The doctor had vanished, and Marconi's thugs were nowhere to be found_.

 _"_ _Well, well, well Janie, it looks like we're going to get some time together after all," Marconi gloated with a smile that never touched his eyes. His gaze raked over her body like hot coals-_ _invasive and degrading, promising her pain and despair._

 _She struggled against the rope binding her wrists but there was no give to be found. "Stay away from me, you sick bastard," she growled as he drew closer. That only made him laugh as he crouched down in front of her._

 _He waited for her to stop struggling and look him in the eyes before he spoke again. "What are you going to do if I don't, hm? Because from where I'm standing it looks like you have nowhere to go Janie."_

 _She spat in his face, a small smirk on her face. "Get. The. Fuck. Away. From. ME." She screamed in his face._

 _"_ _Now, Janie, why did you have to do that? Things were going so well," he reprimanded, any pleasure on his face gone as he brought a hand up to wipe her spit off his face. "Here I thought we were going to be able to have a nice conversation, maybe spend some time together but now we must skip all that. Get straight to the painful part."_

 _Jane refused to be afraid, she looked him dead in the eyes even as a flash of silver appeared in the bottom of her vision. "You don't scare me," she scoffed, "you're nothing but a cheap knock off."_

 _Her words made a mad smile stretch across his face. "Well Janie, I'm sorry to hear that. However, I think by the end of this you might change your mind about me."_

 _Before she could respond pain erupted in her abdomen; she looked down and just started to scream. He'd buried the knife in the far side of her abdomen, and started to yank it across her stomach. He got all the way across and turned the knife around, this time cutting even deeper._

 _"_ _Please, no," she begged, trying to hold in the scream as he sliced through her one inch at a time. It felt like it went on for hours, maybe days, until her throat felt raw from screaming and she felt light headed from the blood loss. But she could do nothing but watch._

 _At some point, he threw the blade away, pushing his hands into her abdomen. "No, stop, please, you can't do this," she whispered. But her whisper didn't stop him and he pulled out a baby, her baby. He gave her a smile as the infant began to wail._

 _Jane- or was it Remi now? The tears made it difficult to tell- started to scream in earnest, her body weakening as she watched him stand and begin to leave the room. Just before the door he turned and smiled at her. "Don't worry Janie, I'm going to keep her safe, I promise._ _Daddy is here."_

 _All she could do was scream and scream as he walked out the door, leaving her alone to bleed and bleed and bleed._

 _She could hear her baby's cries growing fainter and fainter. Jane tried to struggle against her bonds, she tried so hard to find a way to get to her baby. But she just kept bleeding, and her feeble attempts got her no closer._

 _She'd do anything, give anything- but she didn't want to die with her baby in the arms of a monster._

 _"_ _Please," she whimpered, unable to muster another shout, "Please."_

"Jane!"

 _Her baby, she just wanted her baby._

"Jane, wake up!"

"Jane!" She jolted awake; sweat had plastered her hair to her face and terror had her firmly in its grasp. It took many vital seconds to realize where she was, to recognize Roman sitting beside her, his eyes full of terror and confusion as he watched her, seemingly waiting for some sort of violent outburst.

"Jane, are you okay?" He sounded so concerned, so sincere but all she could hear were those cries growing fainter and fainter. Her hand found her abdomen and her fingers searched for the cuts, searched for the gaping hole. But they found nothing.

Still she could not seem to get a grip. She couldn't calm her mind, couldn't talk herself down from the ledge she found herself teetering on. Instead she merely stared at Roman, tears slipping from her eyes, as she tried so desperately to rid herself of those images. Of those sounds.

Roman reached out for her, choreographing his movements so she could see it coming, and pulled her into his arms. "Breathe Jane, please, just breathe. Whatever it is, it wasn't real, I won't let it happen."

Though he was projecting the most soothing presence he could, Roman was out of his depth; confused and, if he had to admit it, frightened. Remi was the _strong_ one, she never, never broke down or hid or cried- certainly not these harrowing, gut-wrenching sobs. In fact, Roman was fairly certain he hadn't seen Remi _ever_ really cry, not since she sent Alice away. _What had happened to his sister? What had hurt her so badly?_

Just as bad, maybe worse- as much as he wanted to dig those answers out, to hold her, protect her and make it all better, he _couldn't_. They had a mission, and if she went in scattered not only could they fail, she could _die_. For that matter, if they failed the mission even Roman knew there was a chance that Shepherd would be so furious that death was still a distinct possibility.

Roman wanted to protect his sister. He wanted her to get these unknown traumas out so that they wouldn't poison her from the inside, but there was no time- the most immediate threat was the mission, and to protect her, Roman had to make sure she got through this alive. Once she did, he'd find out what was hurting her, and when he did? Jane, Remi- it didn't matter what name she wore or what she had forgotten, Roman would make the person who hurt her _bleed_.

He stroked her back, while she pressed her ear to his chest and listened to his heart beat, hands fisted tightly in his shirt. Jane focused on forcing her heart to match his, and slowly she came back to herself.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into his shirt, relishing the feel of kindness. If it weren't for Roman she might have forgotten what that felt like. Safe, protective Roman who had _never_ stopped loving her, no matter how many mistakes she made or how many names she wore. No matter how angry or hurt he felt he would always love her, always cherish her.

She had no one else who would. Wasn't that a sad thought?

His arms tightened around her, "Don't be, but I need you to pull it together. I can't do this without you Jane," he told her as he slowly pulled away. "Failure isn't an option. I-I don't know what Shepherd would do if we came back empty handed."

She could tell it cost him a lot to admit that, and she could see how much it hurt him to ask her to push whatever had happened aside. Roman _wanted_ to love her freely; even Jane could feel that, though she'd been despised for so long it was a miracle she could recognize the emotion at all. Calling on her determination to protect her baby brother and her years of intense training, she summoned some extra bravado she didn't truly feel, her voice clipped, loud and clear; a military cadence to the words. "I'm clear, Roman. The mission is the directive, and the directive is more than one life. Right now, there is nothing but the mission and no option but success." After a moment, she continued more quietly. "I just had a bad dream. Too many missions, not enough sleep." She pitched it as a joke, but she knew it fell flat by the worry that swirled in his eyes.

"Jane-" he started, but she turned away; she just couldn't do this right now, couldn't let her judgement be clouded any more than it already was. She took a deep breath and glanced at the time- three hours had passed while she slept. Any time now their prey- _their victims_ \- would be arriving, and so she had to get it together.

Breath by breath, she forced herself to relax. She pushed away the terror, the helplessness and the horror, the image of her child -so new and still covered in blood- being taken from her, taken by a monster every bit as bad as the one who had sired her.

No. Later. Later, she could let herself bleed, later she could lick her wounds.

Today she had to survive.

Roman cleared his throat like he wanted to say more, but before he could, Jane spotted movement. "Roman," she got his attention as she pointed to the cars pulling up in front of the building. They'd parked some distance from the location, but she could make out the headlights well from their perch.

He nodded, though his eyes barely left her face for a moment to confirm her warning before she felt his gaze return. "Just promise me you're okay," he begged, his voice soft-almost as if afraid that someone might hear him.

"I promise," she told him as she began to pass him weaponry. "Now let's suit up, Shepherd said to expect at least eight people, and three vehicles. Shouldn't be long now until they've amassed, and we need to be ready."

Sometimes it amazed Jane how calm she could make herself sound, even when she felt seconds away from falling apart. Apparently, Shepherd had trained her well- yet even now, without her memories, Jane's stomach clenched in dread when she even _tried_ to remember her training. It wasn't like the ZIP; this felt more organic, and Jane felt certain that the memories had been hidden long before her situation had even been a possibility, though that alone disturbed her on a thousand new levels. Most terrifying- considering the state of her life, how bad could things have been if the trauma had caused her to block _them_ out instead of any of the horrors she _did_ remember?

Roman nodded again, and they slowly assembled all their weapons, both carrying enough steel between them for a small army. Soldiers ready for to fight their own mini war.

She wondered if the dream was her first punishment for the blood she would shed tonight.

Funny, even in rebellion, Shepherd had managed to make her into a killer… and she was using Roman to do it.

Guess people really couldn't change.

Jane would always be a Monster; her first instinct would always be to reach for a weapon. Battle would always calm her and remind her of home. Killing would feel more natural than breathing until the day she died. That's the mark her mother had left on her. The mark that _he_ had left on her. In the end, she would never really be anything but what they made her.

Wasn't that a fun thought?

Still, she'd sold her soul to the devil to avoid going back, and she'd do it again to protect her child. If nothing else she would make sure they never turned out like she did. They would know paint brushes and kisses, hugs and love, the soft press of warm blankets and the warmth of a real home. They would never assemble a machine gun or set off grenades. Never feel the sting of a fist or the cut of a blade. They would never know violence outside of video games and movies. They would never wake up afraid for their life, afraid of what they might find when they opened their eyes. _Never_.

Jane would make sure of it. They had made her a weapon, they made her this deadly super soldier, and now she would use all of that training to protect her child.

"Ready?" she asked Roman, as she checked her gun one last time before she opened the car door, slinking across the grass to a better position. She counted the times the door opened, and tried to count the shadows of the people as they entered the room.

After eight, maybe nine people entered the building they waited, Roman having come to lay beside her in the grass as they watched for any stragglers. They couldn't afford to be caught unaware by anyone coming in behind them. The odds were already against them.

When fifteen minutes had passed without another car approaching the building they made their move. Shepherd had given them the blueprints of the small building, and they knew that there were two entrances; a back door and a front door. Only two rooms, joined by a single door were inside, and no windows.

They expected there would be at least one guard at each door. They had to kill them quietly, because they would seal one of the doors to prevent escape. Anyone who went that way would trip a wire and set off a small explosive device. The other door they would have to watch themselves.

About 200 yards from the building they separated, Roman going to the front and Jane to the back. She had the explosives in her bag, and a dagger, her garrote and a pistol with silencer. All were ready to take out whoever lay waiting for her, but she hoped to take care of it as quietly as possible.

She crept up to the back of the building, keeping a firm grip on her surroundings as she inched around the building. Finally, she found a sight line, noting a single man standing at the post. He looked bored, occasionally glancing at his phone as if he didn't expect any trouble.

She _almost_ felt sorry for him. It made her job easier but in the end, he would still be dead.

She tried not to wonder if he had people at home.

People who would be waiting up for him to return home from a job he never should have taken.

 _Stop._ She couldn't afford to think that way. She couldn't afford to have compassion or mercy. So, she crept closer and closer, watching him carefully for any sign that he noticed her approach. But he never did. She stopped fifteen feet from him, crouching in the shadows, and waited for him to turn his back to her.

He never saw it coming, only let out the smallest gasp of surprise as her hands gripped his head and twisted with all her might. With a crack, he went limp in her arms, and she slowly dragged him into the shadows and began to assemble the explosives and the trip wire.

She doubted anyone would make it this far, but if they did they wouldn't make it any further.

Based on Shepherd's intel, the meeting would occur in the front room, so the occupants would have to get away from Roman _and_ her to reach this point. Between them she doubted anyone would make it further than a few feet.

But she lived to be wrong.

As she moved to meet Roman in front of the house, she stopped to slash the tires of all the vehicles parked in front of the building- just another precaution in case things went south. Just like the cell phone jammer they would activate right before they slipped into the room. No use in them being able to call reinforcements or alert anyone to what happened here.

Shepherd thought of everything.

"You ready?" Roman asked, his voice barely audible as they moved to position themselves. She nodded, tightening her grip on her handgun and as soon as he gave the signal they burst into the room.

Eight faces turned to look at them, people already moving to jump out of their seats, but the first three barely had time to move. Jane didn't miss, and her bullets found their marks in two foreheads, as did Roman's. But they'd lost the element of surprise, and there were still five more men in the room.

They moved closer, more shots were fired, and two more men slumped to the floor. But they were uncomfortably close for gunfire by that point; the chaotic movement made it impossible to assure clean shots and she quickly engaged the closest man in hand to hand combat. He overcompensated, assuming she'd be weak, and earned a dagger to the throat for his efforts.

She swallowed back the wave of nausea as his blood spattered all over her. Roman was engaging the other two men across the room, so she forced herself to pull the dagger out of the stranger's throat.

Moving quickly, she entered the fray. The last two men were at least decently skilled, and they didn't go down easily. Jane spent too much energy deflecting blows aimed at her abdomen, instead taking two punches straight to the face.

Her face, already bruised from earlier that day throbbed, and black spots danced across her vision.

Still she kept fighting, deflecting two more blows to her midsection, and delivering two punishing blows to her opponent. Suddenly she felt fiery hot pain erupt on her side, and her enemy, sensing her weakness, delivered a punishing blow to her chest.

She couldn't breathe and the pain in her side seemed to grow and grow. She raised her hand to try to fend off the next blow… but it never came. Instead two arms wrapped around her and lowered her to the floor.

"Jane, Jane, please, look at me." She tried, forcing herself to focus on the face above hers, trying to identify the person above her through the blackspots. Even obscured though, that sweet face was unmistakable to her.

"Roman?" Her voice was a whisper; she was still unsure where the pain was coming from, but she could hardly think beyond it, which confused her even more- Jane _knew_ pain and had an abnormally high tolerance level.

"Yes, Jane, its me. I'm going to have to put pressure on this, it's going to hurt, but one of them shot you. I'm sorry okay?" She was being laid on the floor, and then he was pushing on her side. Pain shot through her like a lightning bolt and she couldn't contain her choked scream.

"I'm so sorry, Jane, I'm so sorry," Roman muttered it like a prayer, "It's going to be okay Jane, it's going to be okay. I'll make it better."

"Please Roman," she whispered, "Please, my baby, is my baby alright?"

She felt the pressure ease for a moment, and she heard the catch in Roman's voice as he spoke, "Jane, what are you talking about?"

She could barely think, the pain was somehow more than she thought it should be, and her baby had already endured so much. "Please, Roman, you have to save her. You're the only one I trust, _please_ , _Ian_."

She didn't know when the child had become a girl to her. But saying it, suddenly, it felt right. Even in this moment it felt right.

"Please," she mumbled again, coughing as the taste of iron invaded her mouth, "you have to save her."

Distantly Jane felt him lifting her, and something wrapping tightly around her body. She swore she felt the moment when his hand found her tiny bump as he fastened whatever cloth he'd found around her. Then she was floating.

"It's going to be okay Jane, I swear, I swear," he whispered to her as he walked. "We got the chip, we killed them, and you're going to be okay. Everything will be okay."

She focused on his words, trying to ignore the stab of pain that came with each step he took.

"Call Rich," she whispered to him as she tried to cling to consciousness, "Don't-don't tell Shepherd…please."

She didn't even recognize her own voice, it sounded so faint.

"Jane, just hold on, please," Roman begged, and she felt him picking up his pace, but she couldn't hold in the whimper at the movement.

"Call Rich." Somehow, she managed to grip his shirt, and say the words loudly, "Call Rich, help me-he'll-he'll help us…"

They must have reached the car because she was being placed on a seat. Her door slammed, and seconds later another opened. She heard him rummaging around, and then the telltale sounds of a phone call being made.

She thought she heard Rich's voice, and her brother's. But things had started to grow black. She felt someone shake her, thought she heard her name but then she heard nothing.

It all just faded to black.


	8. Chapter 8

Hey guys,

Thank you as always for tuning into this story and for being such loyal lovely fans to my stories! Sorry for having you on the edge of your seat for so long but I promise you won't have to wait long for your answers!

Anyway, enjoy this chapter and as always thank you so so so much for your follows, favorites, and reviews. You truly have no idea how much it means to me to see them and to listen to y'alls thoughts on everything. It is my inspiration to continue this crazy journey even as my life does its best to suffocate me!

Love,

Fallen.

P.S. Also as always, a huge shout out to my amazing Beta Marablackwolf who continues to push me and my story to be the very best we can be! Having her along for this ride has made it immeasurably better and I couldn't tell y'all how lucky I am to have to her working with me on this crazy as story! She fosters all the right things, and really encourages me to unashamedly write the story that I want to write. Even if it's a little darker and a little more truthful than some of these stories tend to be!

Also, a huge shout-out to my readers who comment, especially those who share their own trauma and experiences. I really do try to write stories that show the dark side of situations like this. Where things aren't always happy or don't always work out the way we want them but where the character keeps fighting. Because in real life, those of us who have been abused or molested or raped or traumatized, who have been through combat, through situations you couldn't be sure you were going to get out of alive. No matter which of those applies to you, when you get out, life doesn't just fall back into place. Everyday you have to deal with what happened to you, and everyday it's a fucking struggle. So, thank you for having the courage to share those thoughts with me and I'm glad I can even a little bit portray the reality so many of us have to face! So much fucking love to all of you, who get up every morning despite all the reasons that make it hard to! Big or small, your struggle is real and you're so strong it's ridiculous!

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"In two miles take the first right," The man on the other line told him, voice hard as he repeated the instructions twice until Roman managed to force a reply out.

His hands hadn't stopped shaking, the violent splotches of red pulling his eyes from the road regularly. At the speed he was travelling Roman knew he should be paying more attention but he couldn't find that spot inside his mind. The quiet place he went when the world overwhelmed him, where instinct took over and the parts of him that might have doubted or protested had died a thousand silent deaths.

He saw the road out of the corner of his eye; swinging an arm out to brace Jane's body he took the turn without hitting the brakes, automatically correcting as the car swung, throwing him against the door and thrusting Jane's limp form against his arm with enough force to break his bones had he not properly braced. It didn't matter though, he had to get there in time.

He _had_ to.

"At the end of the road there's going to be a small building, it will look abandoned but I promise you it's ready for you. Take her in there and they will do whatever it takes to get them out of this alive."

 _Them_. Yes, it wasn't only his sister who counted on him now but a niece or a nephew.

A baby.

A fucking baby.

He forced himself to shake the thought away, his eyes tearing from the road to glance at his sister. God, she looked so pale, so still. Jane, Remi, Alice- they all had one thing in common: _life_. It poured off of them, warm and rich. The penetrating look in their eyes that set you on fire, made you breathe just a little deeper and remember that this life is worth living.

A spark, some would call it, but to him it was just _her_. No change of name, no haircut or tattoo or even the loss of her memory could really obscure his sister. Her soul shined too bright to ever hide for long.

His sister had always been a force of nature, a storm breaking against the shores of life. Unstoppable and uncontainable. But now he couldn't find that light. Couldn't see the storm in her eyes. She'd shut her eyes and shuttered herself away from the world, hiding inside her body and gathering her strength.

He couldn't even think about the alternative.

The car skidded to a halt in front of the desolate building in front of him, and he almost forgot to put it in park as he raced around the car. He threw open her door and reached in to pick her up, trying not to think about how light she felt in his arms… or the fact that his t-shirt was quickly being saturated by her precious blood.

All he concentrated on was the faint _wush_ of air he could feel on his neck and the gentle warmth radiating from her. He barged through the door and did a double take. The room in front of him looked exactly like an ER entrance, right down to the white walls and dull plastic chairs lining the wall. Out dated magazines, ugly fake plants and dull landscapes decorated the space.

Double doors in front of him burst open, and a small army of people rushed out. "Is this Jane Doe?" One of the men asked, as people began to pull Jane out of his arms. It took everything in his power not to wrestle her back from them. He didn't know these people. How could he possibly be expected to trust strangers with the most important person in his universe?

But he _had_ to trust them. What other option did he have?

He nodded. "Yes," he forced himself to reply, though his voice cut like shards of glass as it worked its way out of his throat.

That was apparently all they needed, and with a flurry of activity they placed Jane on the stretcher and then, as quickly as they came, they were just _gone_. He wanted to follow but he knew he'd only get in the way. He had to trust them. He had no choice.

But now what did he do?

Roman stood there for what felt like hours, staring at the doors as if somehow, miraculously Jane would walk out with a smile on her lips. That look that she saved just for _him_ on her face. Something genuine and warm that always brought him back to the days in South Africa- days he barely even remembered. The days before all of this had happened, where he could vaguely remember having a mother and a father who cared. Who brought them ice cream and touched them in ways that didn't hurt them.

But she might never give him that look again.

That single thought sent his entire world crumbling, and he found himself on his knees, hands fisted in his hair as the screamed himself hoarse.

He couldn't live without her again. He'd only just started to get back to normal. He'd just got her back for fuck's sake. Hadn't he given enough? Hadn't she? Hadn't they bled enough, sacrificed enough? Why was everything always taken from them? All he wanted in life lay unconscious in a room somewhere beyond those doors bleeding out. All he needed in this life lay dying and what could he do about it?

Nothing Shepherd had trained them to do would help her now. There was no one to torture, no one to kill, no enemies in the grass that he could take down one by one to protect her. They'd been taught to be soldiers, to be weapons in some war that neither of them had ever truly understood. Right now, he needed a healer, he needed a miracle… but he'd never been trained for that. They'd never been trained for that.

They say there are no Atheists in foxholes. Roman was ready to embrace that credo, was willing to do anything to help his sister, but he realized with despair that he didn't even know how to _pray_.

Jane, his amazing sister- she'd taught herself the basics. Fixed him up more times than he could count. She'd taught him how to stitch a wound, how to dress it, how to prevent infection. But they'd never been trained beyond that. Because in Shepherd's eyes, anyone dumb enough to get themselves hurt that badly deserved what happened to them. " _Death comes for the weak_ ", she'd told them, " _so, don't be weak_." Those were her favorite words, and she'd used them often, until they'd become a mantra in the backs of their heads. Because they'd seen what happened to the weak ones.

In their world, the weak never lasted long.

His own weakness had only been tolerated because Jane had covered it with her own strength. Had taught him how to bury it all deep down inside him. But even that couldn't hide it all. Whenever Jane left, Shepherd tried her best to burn that weakness away.

Shepherd.

His mother and his monster.

Shepherd. Who would be expecting a call from him to tell her how the mission had gone down.

Shepherd. Who he needed to lie to, and make her believe his lies. An ability he'd never had before. But now with Jane's life in his hands… he would do it.

Mechanically he forced himself to his feet, forced them to carry him away from her, out the doors and to the car. He forced his hands to grasp the handle, forced his back to turn away from her, and made himself pick up the phone.

He dialed the number and waited. All the while his whole being longed to drop the phone and return. What if they came to find him and he wasn't there? What if she took her last breath while he lingered outside?

"Roman," the voice barked his name, "tell me you have good news."

Roman forced the panic down, forced himself to sound normal. "Of course, mother, I wouldn't bother to call until we did. The deserter is dead along with all his new friends, and we retrieved the chip without a problem."

He didn't have to be beside her to picture the smile that slithered across her lips, ready to bite anyone who drew to close. "Good, when will you be back to the compound?"

"Jane took a small injury, we're stopping in one of the safe houses for the night and we'll be back at the compound tomorrow afternoon. Though Jane may need to be dropped off so the FBI doesn't become suspicious."

"How badly is she hurt?" Shepherd asked the question with all the loving concern one would give a flat tire on a rental car and Roman's lips twisted in a sneer, though he kept his voice neutral.

"Nothing serious, she's already demanding not to be kept out of the ascension," Roman told Shepherd, knowing that would be exactly what the woman wanted to her.

"That's my little wolf. Well take your time, now that's all taken care of there's no reason to rush. The chess board is cleared and our victory is assured," Shepherd spoke but he wondered if she wasn't talking more to herself than him. She often lost track of herself when she got this way, too enraptured by her own ideas and phrases to even remember that other people were in the room besides her. Too in love with her own voice.

"Now go take care of your sister, I expect you both in fighting shape tomorrow," Shepherd demanded before she hung up.

"Love you too," he whispered, and for a moment his weakness reared its ugly head. For a moment, he wanted her to be the kind of mother he remembered. The one who loved him, who cared when they were hurt or injured because she loved them, not because it might jeopardize the mission. He wanted a soothing voice on the other line, and promises to be there as soon as possible.

But he couldn't afford those thoughts.

He had just lied to Shepherd, and if Jane didn't make it through the night he didn't know what would happen. Too late to take it back now though. He would have to live with whatever happened now.

So, he forced himself to shove his phone in his pocket and he gave into his base desire. He walked back into the small hospital, took one of the rickety plastic chairs and placed himself in the best vantage spot. He needed to be able to see the entrance and the double doors. He would protect his sister from any intruders and he would see anyone who came through either set of doors before they saw him. May God have mercy on anyone who came into his sights with anything but good news, because Roman would _not_.

He settled in, because he knew it would be a while.

The problem with keeping vigil was that it gave him nothing but time to think. To think about the baby growing in his sister's womb, and about how he should have protected her. Around and around the thoughts circled, slowly driving him mad as he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited. Watching the seconds tick by as he continued to spiral down the rabbit hole.

Nearly four hours had passed like this, and still Roman stared at the door the small army of doctors and nurses had rushed Jane through. Waiting. He couldn't be sure if he'd even taken a full breath since the doors closed with his sister behind them and him in front of them. His own paranoia began to set in as his thoughts continued to plague him.

He should be in there.

He shouldn't have left her with them. With those _strangers_ , all on the words of a man he'd never even met. How could he trust them? How did he know they'd take care of her?

He should be there just in case. He shook his head, trying to push those thoughts away- but just as they had been for the last four hours they incessantly kept circling back around. A never-ending barrage of self-recrimination and self-doubt. He should have known. He never should have let her come, but she'd been so strong. So sure.

Never for a second had he doubted her.

Even in those first few days, when she'd looked at him like a stranger, some part of him had felt safe again for the first time in nearly a year. That young, weak, innocent part of himself that he'd learned to lock away while Re-Jane was gone rejoiced, awakening inside him like a flower at the first kiss of spring.

It was that same weakness that had caused all of this to happen.

If he had been paying attention, if he had seen the truth she would be safe. The only light in his life wouldn't be in danger of flicking out.

God, how had _he_ let this happen?

Without meaning to he brought his hands up to cover his face, to try to shield him from his own thoughts. But instead all he could see was her blood, dry now against his skin, no longer a deep vibrant red. No, it had clotted and coiled into a molted brown, the color of death, of dirt being thrown onto corpses and the ugly color of despair. He let his eyes rove his hands, up his arms, and all the way to his shirt and his legs. All covered in her blood. He didn't even know how a person could lose so much and still be _breathing_.

He'd known plenty to die in puddles just like the one she left in the car. Like she left in his arms, and on the floor of that fucking hut in the middle of nowhere doing a mission for a woman who couldn't care less if they'd both died- as long as they completed the mission before it happened.

He'd never hated Shepherd with the passion he did right then. It burned in his gut like acid.

He'd told her they were going to one of the bunkers to recover but they'd be there as soon as they could.

She hadn't even _paused_ when he'd mentioned Jane's injury- because Jane's life didn't matter to the plan. The only thing that mattered laid in his pocket. No bigger than the eraser on the top of a pencil. He wanted to crush it, in a defiance that he hadn't felt in years, but he didn't.

No, he just returned to staring at the doors in front of him.

Trying desperately to listen for the sounds of life, for the sounds that would assure him that behind that door somewhere his sister was alive. His sister and maybe his niece or nephew. A thought he had only allowed himself to ghost over these last few hours. But now it seemed he was in for the long haul. Nothing else to keep his thoughts occupied.

Like a punishment, his mind flashed back to that exact moment; Jane's glassy, desperate eyes looking up at him, piercing him more effectively than any bullet. The pleading sound of her voice, as she labored to say even that simplest of sentences. Blood discoloring her teeth and mingling with spit as it leaked out of the corner of her mouth.

She'd begged him then to take care of her _child_.

Not a single thought to herself. Not a hint of fear about asking a monster to care for something so precious. He didn't deserve the blind trust she showed him. But now, here in this moment, Roman wanted to be the person who deserved her faith. He _needed_ to be.

He wanted to be the person a child would offer its hand to willingly.

Fuck assignments, fuck a war he'd been raised to fight.

Fuck _Shepherd_.

If Jane died here, he knew his spirit would die with her, but he would live on. He would forsake Shepherd- fuck, he'd turn her into the FBI himself, to the team Jane so desperately tried to pretend she didn't care for. Oh, she'd tried- even Roman himself had almost believed her, but now he'd had the time to analyze everything. To see all the little things he'd missed that had led them here. She loved them in a way she probably didn't even admit to herself. He would do _anything_ to build a life for her child if it lived. _It had to live_.

He would give the child the life he and Jane would have had if their parents had never been murdered. If they had stayed Alice and Ian. If they'd never been stolen away into hell and freed by the devil herself.

"Well hello tall, surly and brooding, you must be my favorite super special spy's brother, I've heard so much about you." A voice, too loud and too upbeat shattered the silence, and Roman just reacted. Before the man- shorter and weaker than Roman- anticipated or could even blink, he found himself against a wall with a gun to his head.

"Who are you?" Roman demanded, blood like ice in his veins at the thought that a stranger had invaded the space where his sister was fighting for her life. A stranger had come here. A stranger who wouldn't leave here if Roman had any say in it.

The stranger smiled, and confusion must have shown on Roman's face because the man laughed- completely ignoring the cool steel pressed to his temple. "The fantasies I'm going to have later, let me tell you," the man continued to laugh, before his whole demeanor shifted. "Sorry, that was inappropriate of me. I'm Rich Dotcom, we spoke on the phone earlier. I'm the one footing the bill for this beautiful, fully staffed hospital room. I had a feeling we might run into a situation like this. Didn't imagine I'd get to meet you in the flesh when it happened though. I have to admit, I thought it would be a little more convert."

The man paused for the smallest second to catch his breath before continuing his tirade, "Don't take me the wrong way, you're devilishly handsome, Jane clearly isn't the only one who makes the temperature of the room spike up a bit. If ya know what I mean," the man- _Rich_ , said with an obscene wink. "I just wasn't prepared for this, still I got here as fast as money could make it happen. Have you heard anything yet? Is our little doe going to make it out?"

Roman let the gun fall away as he tried to process everything the man had just said. "How do you know her?" He finally asked, unable to really think anything else as he observed the smaller man before him.

"Now that is a long story," Rich told him as a fond expression fell onto his face. "Your sister is a fire cracker, let me tell you that. Love at first sight, at least on my part, still working on convincing Janie that I'm the one. Or at least one of the ones."

"Good luck with that," Roman replied, deciding this man was no threat to Jane, not with the way his eyes softened when he spoke about her. Instead he returned to his seat, "And no, no news yet."

Rich brushed his suit off before coming to sit beside him, "Well they're _supposed_ to send someone out to talk to you regularly, guess you really can't get good help these days."

Roman just shrugged. He wanted to return to his brooding and ignore the man beside him.

Rich seemed to sense his mood, and a phone appeared in his hands. "She's going to make it you know," he told Roman resolutely as he typed away at something, "Jane's the strongest woman I know."

"Yes, they're going to make it," Roman replied, if only because there was no other option. He couldn't do this without her. He'd do it if he had to for the child Jane carried. But if neither made it he would be a walking ghost, waiting to get revenge then simply fading to dust.

So, his vigil- their vigil now- resumed, Rich typing away at his phone the only thing to break the silence that descended upon them. He didn't know how much time passed before the doors before them opened.

A doctor came out, looking harried and exhausted, "She's in the recovery room, but they aren't out of the woods yet."

"Can we see her?" They'd stood and spoken at the same time, both stopping to look at each other before in sync turning back to the woman in front of them.

She nodded, "You can both wait in the room with her, we can talk about her condition as we walk." She turned and gestured for them to follow her, "It was a close call, the bullet went through the intercostal space between her sixth and seventh ribs on the right side, punctured her lung before exiting in the back. The bullet cracked the ribs in a few places, but that's relatively minor compared to everything else. She lost a lot of blood, but thankfully you'd prepacked her type. We had to give her three transfusions during surgery, and we almost lost her on the table twice."

The woman paused, turning to them both as they short circuited behind her. "We were able to save the baby, you should both know, but until we've done further testing we can't know how the injury or subsequent surgery affected the fetus. Jane also sustained a concussion, and bruising to her wrists and legs but that's all minor. The concerning thing is the punctured lung and the blood loss. Right now, she's in the best condition to be expected but she will need to be carefully monitored for the next twenty-four hours."

The doctored turned back around and resumed walking, "She will need to be on bedrest for at least a week and minimal activity for at least a month following. The baby should be carefully monitored by her OB/GYN for the duration of the pregnancy, as trauma can cause a spontaneous abortion of the baby, especially at the stage she's at in the pregnancy."

They stopped in front of a small room; the lights inside were dim, and he could only just make out the shape of a body in the bed. "She'll probably be out for the next few hours, but if she wakes do your best to stay calm and orient her until someone comes.

"Any questions?" When they both shook their heads, she left them alone.

As one they moved into the room, both came to a stop in front of the bed. Staring at the still form before them, Roman's eyes were drawn away from her face by the small bump highlighted by the hospital gown and the sheets. Suddenly he wanted to cry at the injustice of it all.

"She looks like Snow White, doesn't she?" Rich asked, as he slowly approached the bed and moved to sit beside her.

He looked at his sister and had to nod. She _did_ look just like Snow White; her skin, so pale from the blood loss made her hair appear even darker and her eye lashes splayed against her cheeks like dark ink stains. Even her cheeks held just a pinch of color, as if someone had drawn on a doll's face.

She looked like a beautiful corpse.

If it weren't for the slow rise and fall of her chest, and the continuous beeps on the heart monitor he almost would believe it.

At this point his mission had reset. _He'd_ reset. Now he waited, watched and protected. As always, when she left he turned back into a tin man, just waiting for his Dorothy to bring him back to life.

But as the time continued to pass, nothing but the steady beat of the heart monitor and the gentle swish of the magazine pages being turned by Rich questions started to form in his head. Questions that he wanted answers to, questions he needed answers to in order to protect his sister. Questions he needed to answer so that he knew if the man across from him would get to leave this room alive. Regardless of whether or not his sister did.

"What are you to my sister?" He asked, his voice cracking through the silence like a whip, causing the short man across him to jump in his seat. When wide eyes met his, he knew the 'and why should I let you live?' had been received.

But then to his surprise the man's expression morphed from shock to delight, "Are you asking about what I wish I was or what I really am? Trust me that matters when it comes to me and the gothic fairytale writers dream you call a sister."

"Dreams and wishes have never mattered to us, I want the truth," That's all he's ever wanted but in reality the truth is always ugly and bitter. The truth divides and destroys. Maybe he should have asked for the fantasy instead, just this once.

Rich's eyes rolled so hard Roman thought they might freeze behind his skull, "Jesus, I thought Jane was the melodramatic one, but clearly you're the one she gets it from," Rich laughed a little before his expression turned oddly serious, Roman was beginning to notice that tended to happen almost as if the man had two distinct personality, always fighting for dominance within his tiny little body, "But if the truth is what you want the truth is what you get. Daddy Rich always delivers, that I can promise you. This story is a little complicate of course, but the basic gist is the last time Snow white and her seven dwarves had a run in with me I noticed something off about her."

Rich seemed to gather himself, his hands flying about wildly as he got into the story, "Jane, when I first met her was a firecracker, a bombshell; danger, beauty and wit all rolled into one steamy package. Lost, but somehow that only added to her magnetism. I truly couldn't help myself but get involved whenever and however I could when it came to her. But this time, something was off and not in the charming way it was before. No in the sickly, possibly suicidal way that no one ever really likes to talk about. I noticed her odd fixation with protecting her abdomen, the way she seemed to shrink away from people's -especially men's- touches, and how gaunt she looked. As if she hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in longer than she could remember."

"It was truly like seeing a ghost of the woman I used to know, sometimes I'd get a flash but then as quickly as it appeared it vanished as she faded into the background. Something that should have been impossible, and the seven dwarves who loved her so last time I saw her didn't seem to notice or care. Then she slipped me a note on my way to prison, I'd planned an escape of course but somehow that pesky blonde friend of hers had figured it out. Your sister saved my ass that night, and so I had to repay the favor. Then I found out the truth of what had happened to her and what she wanted to do. So, here we are together, working to do the best for our wayward princess and her child."

Roman waited, and waited for the man to say more to continue his tale. To tell him who had done that to his sister, who had again reduced her to a ghost. To the woman who weighed next to nothing in his arms, and seemed a shade of her former self. But the man never continued. Instead he stared calmly at Roman as if he hadn't just given him more questions than answers.

Finally, he couldn't help himself, "Is that it? You're not going to tell me what happened? Who did this to her?"

He knew the Cade story was a lie now. Knew that something far more sinister had happened to his sister, and clearly in that time she'd fallen pregnant. Which told him many things he wished he never had to know. But it told him nothing he could do it fix it.

He was made for war.

No, _they_ were made for war.

He no longer wanted to wage a war with his mother, no longer wanted to bring the world to its knees. He's stopped believing Shepard sought a better world long ago. But Jane had been there before. But somehow he knew without asking that she no longer wanted to stand beside Shepard. Maybe now he could finally leave their mothers shadow and move to stand beside his sister. Now he would be his sisters willing attack dog, instead of his mother chained killer, now he would eviscerate whoever had hurt her. He would salt the earth with their corpses and let the world know what happened to those who hurt the ones he loved.

He wouldn't breath fully until he got to see his sister open her eyes and look upon the skulls of those who dared to touch her. Dared to put their filthy fingers on her flesh and try to break her.

He would burn it all to the ground for her.

But he had nothing to go off of. No information. No names, nothing.

"Do you really want to know?" Gone completely was the joking, smiling man who'd stood before him all this time. Instead a cold, analytical man looked at him, judged him, as if deciding if he were worthy of the truth. Weighing what he'd seen and heard against what he thought needed to be done.

In that moment Roman respected this man, and thought in the wrong circumstances he might fear him. _Good_. His sister needed more people like that on her side.

So, he nodded, maintaining eye contact as he waited for what would inevitably destroy his world. The words that would rip his heart out of his chest and lay it down besides his sleeping sister. He knew but he didn't want to hear the confirmation. Didn't want to have to understand all the ways he'd failed to keep her safe.

But he didn't deserve to continue to live in ignorance. Look where that had gotten them so far. So instead he braced himself as Rich opened his mouth and a tale of horrors began to leak out of his mouth.

For all their training, for all Shepard prepared them for, they never went so far. The things that had been done to his sister even Shepard wouldn't do. Wasn't that a surprise? That here in this moment he might find some small redemption for the formerly irredeemable woman he'd once called mother.

Somehow the longer he the listened the more he kept waiting for the moment it would be over. Where the story of what had been done to his sister, and the consequences she had faced, would end. But every time Rich closed his mouth he opened it again to dig a little deeper into the nightmare's she'd faced. Somehow, he doubted even Jane knew how much this man knew. He knew things he should have but Roman recognized him. Recognized the look of someone who would do anything for Jane. The look of a man who had heard the beginnings of the tale, the bread crumps his sister would have dropped at her most vulnerable and used them to hunt down the rest.

When it finally stopped. When all that stood between them was the silence and the unrelenting images his mind created to match the words he'd heard it began. The horror, and the self-hatred in his blood began to boil. His mind began to catalogue the name's he'd heard, the organizations involved, and plans began to form. His eyes finally broke away from Rich as in sync they looked down at his sister, before again they were drawn to each other.

"I'm going to destroy them," Roman told him, a hatred like none he'd ever felt burning its way through his as he began to contemplate all the people who bore marks on their souls. All the people he himself would escort to the gates of hell and drop at the devil's doorstep.

Rich just smiled, but in that moment the look held no joy only a feeling that echoed in his own soul. Terrifying, and dark, a look of vengeance that nearly took his breath away. Or at least it would have, had his own face not mimicked the look almost instantaneously.

"Good. I'd hoped that we might be able to come to an agreement, because Jane's not ready for revenge. I don't want to push it, but I had a feeling you might be the man for the job," Rich paused, a tiny bit of that humor returning, "You see, I'm clearly not the man with the muscle, but between the two of us there isn't a place on this god forsaken planet they can hide. I've been gathering names, and intelligence on all of them since Jane told me. I'm prepared to go to war."

Somehow, Roman thought this was the start to the first real friendship he'd ever wanted, "War's in our blood."

He felt that would be answer enough, and from the look on Rich's face it was. With that they both sat back in their chairs and resumed their vigil. He had so much more to think about now. Not just a niece or nephew to protect, not just a sister to keep safe, but now he had a scent in his nose. Something to pull his mind out of the hole that Jane's truth had dug for him.

He had failed her. In a visceral, painful way that no brother should ever fail his sister, he'd let Shepard send her away. He'd let her out of his sight, hadn't bothered to push when Shepard hadn't allowed him to find her when suddenly she'd vanished. He hadn't looked for her. Then when she'd returned he'd allowed his own selfish happiness to distract him from the truth sitting right in front of his eyes.

But he was done failing her. He was done being Shepard puppet on a string.

He would do what he had to do to make this right.

He would.


	9. Chapter 9

Hey guys!

Jesus its been a long time, its been a crazy time for me, my grandmother passed away in November, which absolutely broke me. She never got to see me graduate from nursing school in December, and I never got to tell her how much she meant to me. It's been rough with her being sick before that, finishing up school and other issues for me to write. But I finally decided a few nights ago that I needed to finish what I started.

So, this chapter is the beginning of the end of this story or it is if you want it to be! AS always, I love the snot out of you guys and the reviews are the reason I keep going!

Love,

Fallen

P.S. As always, a shout out to my amazing beta reader Mara Blackwolf (SpiritQuartz on FF and AO3)!

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Reade was in a fog as he walked into work; he hadn't been able to sleep the previous night, between Tasha's latest "help" with the Jones case and Jane. His brain had been on overdrive, trying to think of the all the different ways he'd failed, all the problems he had to solve. But, no grand solutions had arisen; instead he'd just stared at his ceiling all night praying for an answer.

At least he had finally had a chance to say something to Jane. To offer some apology, no matter how pitiful, to her. Maybe even to begin to bridge the gap between them! He wanted so desperately to prove that he had something to give her, that he could help her somehow. His entire life had been dedicated to _fixing_ and _solving_ and _improving._

But these days he wondered if he could help anyone.

"Reade?" Kurt's voice broke him out of his thoughts, "Have you seen Jane?"

The words felt like ice water, cold and sharp against his soul, "No, isn't she here already?" He couldn't think of a single day since she'd come back to them that she hadn't been waiting for them all in the office- usually segregated in a corner, quiet, watchful and jumpy. The first one to arrive and the last one to leave every day without fail. His eye darted around the bullpen, searching for her, as if someone had merely overlooked her. He would find her, of course he would.

But he didn't; instead he saw Patterson, who looked even paler than normal biting her lip as she talked with Tasha and Nas.

"Have you contacted her detail?" He asked, dread already sitting heavy in his stomach. Jane wouldn't have just left; she would have told them Sandstorm had contacted her. She _always_ told Weller and Nas, though whether she called or texted seemed to depend on her mood. Lately, it had always been texts; Reade had noticed how with each mission Jane seemed to return darker and darker- wearier and more brittle. As if some part of her died on those missions, and he again wondered what kind of monsters they were to send her into that snake pit.

Kurt's voice again brought him back to the present, "Yes, last night seemed like a normal night, Jane got back from the baby shower and entered her apartment. Some lights went on and off, and things were quiet. But this morning she gave no indication that she'd woken up, and when they knocked no one responded. I told them to wait to breach the apartment until we got there, we all know how Jane is about strangers."

"What do you mean? She loves her detail," he asked. In fact, the only time he'd seen her smile or laugh in the last few months had been the few times he caught her coming into or leaving the building with the men. Yet, how much pain had that shower caused Jane? People who Jane loved treating her like filth, gushing over the prospect of a baby who had been conceived by the man she clearly loved while she was being electrocuted, beaten or water boarded. The only family Jane had, who she couldn't even trust to tell about the baby she had hidden in her own belly.

The thought made Reade's stomach twist uncomfortably, and for a moment he feared he would either vomit or cry.

Kurt shrugged, "They had a last-minute change in detail, the guys who normally hang around at the office during the day watched her last night."

Reade immediately stopped listening. Kurt seemed completely oblivious, but at least he hadn't let them go inside her house. He walked past Kurt and headed towards the others, immediately zoning in on Patterson, "Have you been able to trace her cell phone?"

"It's currently turned off, but it last pinged inside her apartment," Patterson replied, her voice quivering, and her eyes watered as her gaze skittered from his face to the floor. "I know she keeps a burner for missions with Sandstorm, but I haven't been able to get a trace on it to see if she has it on her."

He wanted to scream as again the hatred boiled up inside him, he'd only just promised himself to keep her safe. How could he do that if she just kept disappearing? The fact that only he and Patterson, out of their entire _family_ seemed to grasp the horror of the situation made it even worse.

"Reade, Tasha, we're going to head to Jane's apartment, see if there's anything there that could help us find her. Nas, Patterson keep working on trying to trace those phones and see if we can get a hold of her. Maybe she just fell asleep and forgot to plug her phone in."

Reade scoffed, shook his head and started for the elevator. "That'd be a first. She hasn't looked like she slept a night since she's been back." Even Kurt didn't sound convinced, though he didn't respond to Reade's barb. All of them knew something had happened. Whether that _something_ happened to be related to Sandstorm or not was the only thing that mattered. Either way Jane would likely come back worse off than she left.

She always did.

The ride down the elevator went by in silence, as did the walk to the garage and the drive to Jane's house. A strange, heavy, tension filled the air and none of them seemed willing to break it. Not that Reade complained, the tight line he'd been walking seemed ready to snap beneath him. The anger that had bubbled up since Jones, since Jane, since Freddy… all of it felt ready to choke him beneath its weight.

God, he used to feel so put together. So, collected. But now he felt ready to snap. Like a bomb two seconds from going off. He _wanted_ to shout and tear and hit, he wanted to break things and force the people he'd always had such respect and admiration for to act like decent humans.

As they pulled up to Jane's safe house, Reade forced himself to take three deep breaths. He needed to be able to look at this scene without the haze of anger clouding his thoughts. He wouldn't fail her again. He _couldn't_.

They got out of the car in sync and met up with the detail who'd been waiting on her stoop for them. They exchanged the standard questions, but it seemed as if they had noticed nothing. Granted, if Jane had wanted to leave without anyone noticing it wouldn't be hard for her. She did it often with Sandstorm stuff, they would never notice her.

Thankfully Kurt ended the conversation quickly, dismissing the detail after they handed over the master key to the safe house. With that Kurt knocked loudly on the door, calling Jane's name, before opening the door with his gun drawn.

They were greeted by silence and darkness as they entered the safe house. Kurt flicked on a light as he repeated his call for Jane as they all streamed in. Reade went up the stairs as Kurt headed up the small hallway into the kitchen and Zapata headed into the living room area. As he walked up the stairs he noticed what must have been a mirror facing the landing, covered in a black sheet. He paused for a second, forcing himself to push away the thoughts that flooded him at the sight and the goose bumps that covered his skin, before he continued to the left toward the bedroom.

As he made his way down the hall he noted how barren it looked; before her apartment had been covered in knick knacks & goofy art work the girls had picked up on their various adventures around New York, but now all the walls stood stark and empty before him. He paused midway down the hallway to open a door, gun ready, but inside only revealed two towels and an unopened pack of toilet paper. Satisfied, he closed the door and made his way to the door at the end of the hall.

Jane's bedroom, as he knew from the schematics that on the right of the landing lay the bathroom, and the left her bedroom. When he reached the door, he gently pushed it open, gun ready as always, but quickly lowered when he took in the emptiness.

His mind felt blank; before him stood the loneliest looking room he'd ever seen. Again, three objects he assumed to be mirrors were covered with thick black sheets and the bed had been made to perfect military standards.

He half-heartedly looked under her pillows and stopped, tears clogging his throat, when he saw a soft, fuzzy baby quilt- clearly hand-made, patches of varying patterns and colors haphazardly hand-sewn together. Their Jane was about as domestic as a feral coyote, but she had clearly spent several of her sleepless hours in this barren living space trying to create something warm and loving for her baby. Reade picked up the blanket reverently, cuddling it in his arms and wishing he could just hug _Jane_.

The tables beside the bed were barren, except for a single photo of the team together before everything went to hell, one small sketch book and a pencil.

He hesitated but he walked forward and flipped open the book.

Regret and anguish hit him as he took in the sketch before him. A picture of Jane -at least that's what his mind imagined- lay before him. But unlike the usual, Snow White like beauty he saw, this version looked wretched. Emaciated, skin drawn so tight that bones were visible, bruises and scars marred every inch of naked flesh; some were clearly handprints and his stomach rolled thinking of what horror had put those marks on her body. But even worse were the eyes; draw sewn shut, as was the mouth - her ears were the only thing left unobstructed. The background was shaded darkly, words etched so deeply into the page he wondered that the pencil hadn't broken through surrounded Jane's image and were written on her. Words so horrible he didn't want to have to see them.

Foot steps coming up the stairs tore his eyes from the sight, and without thinking he picked up the small sketchbook and shoved it into one of his pockets. He didn't want the others to see this, he knew Jane wouldn't have wanted him to see it, and he wanted to do something for her even more now that they had invaded her privacy.

"Find anything up here?" Tasha's voice called down the hall, getting closer as she made her way towards him. Something about her voice sounded off, and he immediately walked out to meet her. He'd been disappointed in her behavior the other day, but then he'd been disappointed in his own. She would always be his best friend.

He forced himself to sound normal. "Nothing of use, just a lot of covered mirrors and emptiness, but I haven't looked in the bathroom yet. You find anything?"

The look in her eyes told him they had. "Nothing that will help us find her. Did you know Jane painted?" The sudden direction change threw him for a loop, but when he caught up he felt another stab of dread. He'd seen just one sketch, he didn't want to imagine what Jane might have painted and the purloined sketchbook felt heavy in his pocket. But he shook his head at Tasha; he'd always known Jane sketched but he'd never seen her do anything else.

She nodded, eyes unfocused, "Me neither."

He waited for her to continue but she didn't. Instead she turned around, "Let's check out the bathroom."

"Okay, you sure you're alright Tasha?" He asked as they moved in sync towards the bathroom. She said nothing, a slight hitch in her step the only indication that she had heard him. He wanted to press, but before he could she'd reached the bathroom door and pushed it open.

In front of him, lay a normal bathroom… or at least it would have been being it not for the shattered mirror before them. He thought he saw dried blood crusted on some of the spidery shards occupying the space, sending back fractured reflections of Tasha and him where they stood. He watched as Tasha reached a hand up to touch the mirror, her fingers flittering over the edges of the pieces.

"You were right, ya know?" She asked, "We shouldn't have done what we did when she got back. I've known for a while now that we were wrong to do it, but I didn't want to confront that. Didn't want to admit I've been a monster. But being here, see the way she's been living makes it hard to ignore, doesn't it?"

Again, he wanted to ask her if she was okay, but he stayed silent. He could tell she didn't want an answer; whatever she'd seen downstairs, or whatever conflict she faced inside herself she just needed to get the words out.

"When did you find out?" She asked him, her hand leaving the mirror as she turned to face him, the same hand going to pull a small image out of her pocket, "Recently I'm guessing? I've noticed you've been being different around her."

He stared at the black and white image before him; if he hadn't have been to a few prenatal appointments he never would have recognized it for what it was. But he did, and his hands reached out without his permission to grasp the small picture. He pulled it towards him, almost possessively, his eyes taking in the grainy image on the paper.

It was impossible to explain, but that little picture that barely looked human…that was a baby- _Jane's_ baby- and without even seeing his face, Reade knew that he _loved_ that baby. He couldn't even imagine how much Jane much loved that child, and she hadn't even been able to talk about it. The team _was_ her family, for all intents and purposes- she had no parents, no aunts and nobody she could safely even talk to.

Somehow, this made it real; Jane would be a mother soon. Jane had been raped by the CIA, and now the FBI abused her in its own way. Turned her into a pawn, a piece they had little to no intentions of protecting or looking out for. One he imagined most people wanted to die along with Sandstorm.

People he knew, people he respected, had no interest at all in keeping the baby in this grainy picture alive. They wouldn't lose any sleep if that tiny person who Jane loved- her only real family- never lived to take a single breath.

"Where?"

"She had it taped to the fridge," Tasha replied, "You still haven't answered my question, Reade."

He tore his eyes away from the paper and forced himself to look at her, "I overheard her talking to Patterson about it a week or two ago. Didn't take much to piece it together from there, and then all I could do was hate myself."

She just nodded, "Kurt called for a forensics team to come check the place out, but right now it looks like Jane left of her own free will. We have to go back to headquarters. Kurt wants to have a meeting with everyone."

Again, the abrupt topic change threw him off, but he knew that, like him, Tasha compartmentalized. Right now, he could imagine she had a lot to push away if she were going to be able to do her job. As they headed down the stairs they met up with Kurt, and from the look of him Reade could tell that he knew. Their eyes met, and something passed between them.

In that moment there was no doubt that Kurt was aware that Reade had known- and kept it from the others.

It surprised him when Kurt just opened the front door and headed to the SUV without saying a word. Something in his expression was different than normal, as if something inside him had been kicked loose and he was holding it all together by a thread.

This was a feeling he knew all too well, and a look he'd come to recognize in the mirror each morning. Drowning people always recognized other drowning people. There was an eerie familiarity about the way a person held themselves when they were just barely treading water.

As he shut the door behind them, some part of him wanted to go back in and see what had rattled Tasha so badly. To look upon the paintings that must have littered the lower level, but he had seen enough. Jane hadn't wanted them to see anything in there. Like the dark things that happened to her, she had kept them hidden away from all of them. He tried not to think about how much they had just violated her trust by doing what they'd done. No matter why they'd done it.

Especially as it looked more and more like she'd been called away by Sandstorm.

The steady beeping of machinery drew her from the darkness of unconsciousness. Immediately pain hit her; a steady throbbing from her head alerting her to a possible concussion, numerous aches from her face to her legs indicating bruising, and then pain in her rib cage.

Drowsily she imagined that she'd cracked some ribs, and oh, how she hated rib injuries. The pain made her want to curl back up and hide away in the darkness. It had been so long since she closed her eyes and only found darkness. Usually nightmares or memories plagued her, keeping her from ever truly resting, and she wanted to relish the absence, this one time where _he_ wasn't there behind her eyelids.

But as her mind cleared, she knew that she could do no such thing, and instead she forced herself to open her eyes. Blinking rapidly at the bright lights all around her, as her vision cleared she noticed two things. One: she was without a doubt in a hospital bed, and two: before her lay Roman and…Rich Dot Com?

"Well, if it isn't Sleeping Beauty herself, back from the dead I see?" Rich's teasing voice drew her eyes to him, and she felt a small smile touch her lips. She ignored the small tinge of pain the action caused, the bruises from the fighting still unhealed…wait.

Her mind halted as she realized she was in a hospital bed. Why? Panic hit her like a freight train, as she jerked up, ignoring the trilling of the machines as her heart rate sky rocketed. Memories hitting her as she remembered the mission, and the bullet that tore through her.

Suddenly none of the pain mattered, as her hands clenched her abdomen and fear like nothing she'd known before dug its fingers into her. Her breath started to come in great, loud, gasps, each movement stabbing as her ribs protested.

"Jane, please look at me," two voices spoke at once, disorienting her further as she tried to get the words out of her mouth. Panic made it impossible, black spots danced in her vision as she tried to think what had happened. Tried to make her mind tell her what she so desperately wanted to know.

Then a warm, calloused hand fell atop hers, at the same time another settled on her shoulder, but the hands, she knew them. Her body calmed ever so slightly as their warmth bled into her. "Jane, your baby is fine; they've been running tests all night. You're okay, you're both okay, Rich and I made sure of that. So, Jane, I need you to look at me and breathe with me."

Her eyes darted around the room a few more times before she could force them to settle on the face swimming before her. Her eyes locked with his, and she couldn't look away. "That's right, now Jane, take a few breaths for me, you being upset isn't good for my niece or nephew, okay?"

She felt herself nod, and she tried so hard to match her breath to his. But it felt so much harder than she thought, the panic still gripping her tight in its grasp. Even though she heard the words, her brain refused to understand them, refused to accept that things for now were alright.

It felt like hours before she finally calmed down. Before her breath stilled and her heart slowed to a more normal rate. By then her mind had calmed, and she had started to piece together her wall. Her baby would be okay. Her baby would be okay. She repeated it like a mantra.

She repeated it until she believed it.

With one long sigh, she closed her eyes and let herself fall forward to rest against her brother's shoulder, "Did Rich tell you?" she asked quietly. Now that the panic subsided, she needed answers and for the moment her child was safe. She had to focus on the other things. The terrible realities of her life, one of them being the relationship with her brother.

"No, you did, right after you were shot. You kept saying two things, call Rich and save my baby," Roman responded, his deep voice rumbling through her, "It didn't take a genius to figure it out."

"Lucky, he called me too," Rich chimed in, "You lost a lot of blood there my little doe, and if it weren't for my reserves we might not have had enough to save you." By the end something serious had taken over his tone, and Jane didn't have to raise her head to know his brown eyes were dark and serious. Rich Dot Com was a lot of things, but underneath all his bluster he cared deeply, like no one she'd ever known. His greatest weakness and his greatest virtue in one.

Another thought seized her, "Have you called Shepherd? Fuck, I didn't tell the team I was leaving, how long has it been?" It had already been a full day since she left, she didn't know how long she'd been out. God, when she got back they would be at her fucking throat. She almost didn't want to picture their reactions.

Though, on the other hand, maybe Tasha would be so happy that Jane had been shot that she'd just revel in that instead of trying to make Jane _more_ miserable.

Silver linings and all that.

"Yes, I called _mother_ , she told me to have you back in fighting order tonight," Something about the way he said it caused her to push away from him, she wanted to look him in the eyes as he continued, "Whatever she'd planning goes down tomorrow Jane. So, I think it's time you cut the bullshit and told me where you really stand. I can forgive you for hiding them from me, but if you lie to me now Jane, I can't make the same promise."

A different type of fear hit her then, the fear of her brother's reaction and the fear that he might abandon her. The only real person aside from Rich and Patterson who cared about her. Maybe the only person in her whole life who loved her. She couldn't lose him but either way she looked at it, it seemed she would. If she lied, he would know, but if she told the truth he would hate her. How could he not? He'd always been so faithful to the cause-a cause she had dragged him into- and what would he do?

Abandon it for her? Help her over throw their mother? No, she couldn't see either of those things happening. She imagined him turning his back on her and she couldn't even bear the thought of it. But still, she couldn't lie to him. Not anymore, she was so sick of all the lies. The constant charade she had to put up, and the fabrications, prevarications and half-truths, both little and enormous that made up her every day life.

She was a mother now, responsible to another loving, innocent life- a child like Roman, perhaps- like Ian had been- and Jane had no intention of setting that poor new life into the morass of untruth that they had been drowning in. For Roman, for Ian- she had to make a, safe, honest life for her baby. That child had already survived more than they should have had to; sired by a monster in hell on earth. The first sounds he heard of his mother's voice hadn't been lullabies, they had been screams, moans and tears.

She decided, forcing herself to straighten despite the dizziness that hit her, and forced herself to look him in the eye. "Roman, I…" She paused, trying to find the words inside herself, "I-I'm not a double agent working against the FBI. I'm a double agent working against Sandstorm, and I'm trying my hardest to take our mother down before her final plan is realized. I want to stop her before people- innocent people- get hurt, and before she gains the power she's always been after. I never wanted to lie to you, please believe me, but I have to do this."

She wanted to go on, but the look in his eyes stopped her. After all, what else could she possibly say? Her eyes dropped to her hands where her long, pale fingers were clenching the blanket so hard her knuckles had turned white.

"Re-Jane, why didn't you tell me?" Roman asked, something broken in his voice, and that made her heart break into a million more pieces. God, why did everything she do have to ruin things?

"At first, I didn't know you Roman," she whispered, her eyes again drifting away from his in shame, "because of the ZIP I didn't even know myself, but then, how could I? You're so loyal to the cause, to Shepherd; I couldn't ask you to betray that for me. I dragged you into this hideous world when I was Remi, but Roman... I was wrong and I am so, so sorry. The deal I made with the FBI guaranteed your freedom, and money enough to do whatever you wanted once it was all over. I knew even then that you would hate me, but I wanted you to be _free_. We've never really been free…" Her voice trailed off.

Silence stretched between them. Each second sent another shard of pain slicing through her heart. She'd known this would happen, but the reality hurt more than the fantasy. She wanted her brother beside her, she wanted her child to grow up with Roman orbiting them- to be a family- but now she feared that would never happen. Just another punishment from the Gods for her misdeeds.

She wondered when they would decide she'd been punished enough.

Wetness trailed down her cheeks, and she realized with a start she'd begun to cry. One of her hands, trembling as it went, reached up to brush the tears away. She hated crying, and they'd been trained to despise weakness. Tears would do her no favors here; although Rich might be affected by them, she didn't need him to be anymore invested right now. As with everything Rich did, he went all in from the start, and never looked back.

But then, a hand grasped her chin and lifted her head, her eyes immediately met her brother's, "Jane, please don't cry."

His words only made the tears come faster, as if some dam inside her broke. "Hormones," she managed to choke out.

That startled a laugh out of Rich, but all her attention remained on Roman. "Doesn't matter, Jane, you should have told me sooner. But, I don't know if I would have been ready to hear before. I'm ready now though." There was deep pain in his eyes when he looked at Jane, but the strength behind his eyes was new, vibrant and she couldn't look away.

"I'm ready to take down Shepherd, you're right. A lot of innocent people are going to die if her plan goes through and I don't want that anymore. I don't know, maybe I never did," this time he looked away from her, and she could hear the pain in his voice. Roman had always been deeply loyal, no matter how hard someone beat him. If they gave him an ounce of affection, he would burn the world to the ground for them. She couldn't imagine what those words cost him, what even the idea of turning against Shepherd did to him, even if he'd been having doubts. Doubts were different than action, and Jane knew the cost.

"Roman, don't do this for me, I understand if she has your loyalty-" Before she could say more he interrupted, his voice suddenly fiery.

"Don't, Jane. I made my choice last night while you bled out beside me," his voice shook with anger and something else, something indefinable, "I called her, and she… she didn't even care you'd been _hurt_. She's never cared how much we bled for her, while she sat in her ivory tower, and she's never cared how many people had to die to get what she wanted. If we were shot in front of her tomorrow, she wouldn't care at all unless the plan had been jeopardized. She's supposed to be our _mother_ ; do you remember what that's like?" Now the pain was evident in his voice, "I remember sometimes, our real mother, and I remember being happy. I was never afraid or in pain or worried what would happen if I disappointed her. But with Shepherd… that's all our lives have been. Pain, fear, worry, and terror in some shape or form."

All the fight seemed to die then, as if someone snuffed out his candle, and he looked at her, tears in his eyes, "I don't want to be a monster anymore, and you're the only person who's ever made me want to be better. I'll do anything for you, anything!"

She just cried harder, reaching forward to pull him towards her, ignoring the throbbing in her ribs and the protesting in her aching muscles to pull him to her chest. She rocked them, as Roman's silent tears wet the front of her gown, and her own tears streaked down her cheeks.

But now her tears were both sad _and_ happy… also frightened, frustrated, exhausted and desperate. A reflection of the turbulence within her; exultation that her brother would choose her, grief that he'd been forced to choose against the only mother he really knew. Terror that she wouldn't be enough for him- he needed so much love, how long would it take him to heal? And so much self-reflection- was she as bad as Shepherd herself? Was she a just another person in Roman's life asking him to do things that he shouldn't have to do, using his idealistic nature to manipulate him? She didn't want to make him betray the very thing that had molded his life, didn't want to ask him to betray the people he'd fought with and bled with. Didn't want to ask him to potentially kill or maim people they'd known for years.

 _She didn't want to be their mother._

 _She didn't want to be the old Remi._

But she would. She knew that she had to, and she knew now that he would say yes. _I'll do anything for you_ , kept ringing in her head like a bell. She would be better than Shepherd. She would be better than _everyone_ in their lives who had beaten them, who had burned them, abused them and torn their blood from their bodies. She wouldn't betray his trust in her.

"Well, not to break up this touching moment, but we're on a time table here. Though it breaks my heart, we need to get down to business and figure out our next moves."

Rich's voice pulled her away from the darkness and back to reality. "You're right," she replied, forcing herself to release Roman and collect herself. Brushing away the last of the tears and digging her nails into her palms until she was certain she was under control. She allowed the pain to center her and forced herself to push away all her emotions and refocus.

"Roman, we need to fill you in on everything, and you can decide what kind of role you want to have in this. I'm not like Shepherd, I'm not going to move you like a pawn. You tell me what you can and won't do and we will work with that. Rich, do you have everything we need? I know Patterson got you the last of it recently."

Rich nodded, "Yes, our little blonde friend has been quite helpful; thanks to her I finished everything last night, and on a hunch, I brought it all with me. You know," he leaned in and stage-whispered, "I think she's a little sweet on me. I keep telling her my heart belongs to you, but you know how it is."

She nodded, the last pieces of her plan coming together, "The tracker will broadcast to the FBI as I asked?" Rich looked a little hurt that she completely ignored his come-ons, but she ignored it. He knew she didn't have the time or the energy for that kind of nonsense. Not that he didn't amuse her or lighten the mood, but he had after-all been the one to insist that they focus.

"Yes, Snow White, the seven surly dwarves will get all the information they need to get to where we need them tomorrow."

With that she felt a weight lift off her chest, and she proceeded to tell Roman the plan, every piece of the plot she'd hatched almost two months ago finally spoken aloud. All the technical pieces were assembled, now she needed to execute them. Everything would hinge on the meeting tonight with Shepherd, where she would have to pull herself together despite her injuries and act like Remi, and then tomorrow- where everything would either fail or succeed.

If they failed, she would never hold her child in her arms. If they succeeded she would finally be free. She would finally get to walk away!

It had been a full day since Jane had disappeared, and still none of them had heard from her. Reade had started to go a little crazy, and he wasn't the only one. Kurt had been pacing back and forth, going between Patterson's office and the bullpen, yelling at the agents running around or locking himself in his office.

Weller had taken the news of Jane's pregnancy as badly as Tasha. Reade knew from experience what they were going through. Running through every interaction they'd had with her since she'd come back and finding themselves lacking. Realizing that _they_ were the villains in this story, and that they, like petulant children, had been taking their aggression out on a victim- a victim who never even fought back. On someone who needed to be protected, to be healed… and maybe to be saved. Someone that had been their family, their friend, and in Kurt's case, though it hurt to admit it, possibly the love of his life. No, Reade wouldn't want to be in their shoes. But he could tell that Patterson at least felt relief that the cat had gotten out of the bag without her having to say anything.

Though, unsurprisingly, the reaming out she'd gotten when they'd returned to headquarters and it had come to light that she'd _known_ had been rather spectacular. But she'd shut them all down by saying exactly what Reade had thought all along, or rather shouting it. _"Jane's had enough choices taken from her and she didn't want you to know! She didn't know how you'd use it against her."_

 _"_ _We'd never have done that," Zapata snapped, thought Reade gave her a disbelieving glance._

 _"_ _Really? 'Cause I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what everyone here has said and done, and I can understand why she thought that."_

 _Tasha looked chagrined, pained as she murmured, "I shot her when she came back. I was pissed, and I wanted her to hurt. I could have killed her baby."_

 _Weller was turned to the window and his voice, though quiet, carried through the team. "We sent her into the hands of a sadist. We left her there for three months, and when she escaped- without help from anyone- we immediately forced her into another prison. No chains or physical abuse, but we just… filled that vacuum with mental and verbal abuse. Every suicide mission we pushed her into, every insult- we were targeting a pregnant rape victim. How did they even survive?"_

 _"_ _She betrayed us, Kurt. She broke the law. We had no way of knowing. She could have told us!" Zapata sounded fierce and determined, but there was a pleading note to her voice that made it sound like she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else._

 _Weller continued on as if Tasha hadn't spoken. "The last report she turned in, it had this… little typo. And I snapped at her about it and she apologized just like always, but now I keep thinking…since she's been back, when we refused to listen to her apologies about what she did before, she started apologizing for everything else. Paperwork with a typo. Walking too close. Breathing too loud. Speaking out of turn. I can't think of anything she hasn't apologized for."_

 _"_ _Kurt-Weller, we all know that Jane signed up for this willingly," Nas's cold voice interrupted, "Frankly, the alternatives were working for us or going back to the CIA- who would have certainly found a way to hide any evidence of a child. If anything, we saved her, and she should be grateful for our help. She knew the risks, and she chose to take them."_

 _Reade just stared at her, words crowding his brain so fast that he couldn't push them out of his mouth. Every time he thought that the woman in front of him would stop surprising him with her near psychopathic inability to empathize she found a new way. Who the fuck would say something like that?_

 _It seemed like Kurt felt the same, he turned to look at his team and his face was creased with anguish and anger. "No, I broke her. What the CIA couldn't manage with months of torture, I did without a single touch. Of course, she didn't tell us. Even if she weren't pregnant we should never have sent her out to do those missions. She's supposed to be our asset, our friend, fuck our family, not some pawn to be sacrificed to the enemy."_

 _He paused, his hands coming up to cover his mouth, "How could we have done this? What kind of leader am I to have allowed you to continue creating those suicide missions?" This time he looked directly at Nas, "What kind of person are you to think that we handle our people like that? I should have stopped you…" He trailed off, his eyes unfocused as he looked somewhere behind them._

 _Patterson bit her lip, seemly hesitant to speak after Kurt's outburst -which had Nas looking shell shocked to his left- finally opened her mouth, "Do you think there's any chance that Keaton knows? Could he be harassing her? I mean- how much has she been hiding? How much danger is she in?"_

 _Those words seemed to spark something in all of them, himself included, none of them had ever thought of that. Which, given how close the CIA headquarters was and the fact that the CIA had never had any qualms about their desire to have Jane, made him feel like an idiot. The faces around the table reflected the same thoughts. Now they all moved as one, wondering if maybe it had been their own "allies" not their enemies had taken her._

 _That had certainly renewed their vigor in finding her. Sending all of them off to their areas to search and work even harder to bring her back home._

After that they'd all calmed down enough to talk about Jane's disappearance, and there had been a notable difference in everyone but Nas, who seemed to only care about the fact that a child might hinder Jane's ability to do her work. The dismissive tone, the disgusted twist of her lips when she had to mention the inconvenience of the pregnancy or Jane's "diminished skill set" … it made Reade want to hit her if he were being entirely honest, which probably wasn't a healthy response, but this woman truly brought it out in him. She simply had no ability to empathize, no desire to humanize Jane, and she made it clear with her actions that she'd rather the team demonized her as well. It was more than just not caring about Jane's pain; the motivation seemed a lot darker and more malevolent; Suddenly Nas seemed like she herself was a danger. The team seeing Jane as human again made them question Nas's actions as well as their own; something that would be detrimental for Nas's grand plan, Reade imagined. Even after Kurt all but called her out on it, she seemed unwilling to admit that what she'd done might have been wrong, instead she plowed forward. Only digging her own hole deeper and deeper, Reade hope she trapped herself in it.

Still he pushed away that thought and the niggling concern that accompanied it and continued to focus on the work in front of him. He would find Jane, and he would bring her home. Then all of them could fix what they'd broken and work to help their friend find her feet again!

But damned if he wouldn't be watching Nas a hell of a lot closer than he had before.

For hours it continued in the same way, the light fading away as darkness descended around them, and still all of them worked. Quitting time came and went and still they worked, but he knew now that he wasn't the only one trying to make up for his actions by doing this. All of them knew now, all of them had to face what he faced and all of them had work to do now.

They were pushing all their angles as hard as they could; Kurt and Tasha calling in all their favors with the CIA to see if they had taken Jane, he worked -rather reluctantly- with Nas to sift through all their information on Sandstorm to see if they could get some hint of what Jane might be up to. But so far all of them had come up with nothing, even Patterson locked in her glass office seemed unable to come up with anything.

He felt as if hope were fading away, and hopelessness replacing it.

It felt like a week had passed when Patterson suddenly rushed out her lab, "It's Jane, she's on the phone right now!"

Like a herd of wild elephants, they stampeded towards Patterson's office, and all of them at once speaking in a chaotic rush of words:

"Jane, where have you been?" Kurt practically shouted as he pushed into Patterson's office.

"What's the mission report?" Nas as always, didn't bother to pretend like she cared how Jane was, instead only asking about the mission. He wondered at the fact that it had never bothered him before. Some cruel part of his mind, he could see now, enjoyed how callous they had become to her after what they'd perceived she'd done to them. How wrong they'd been.

"Are you okay?" Tasha's voice, hardly even a whisper, seemed to be drowned out by Nas harsh voice, and Kurt's worried but authoritative voice. Still, Reade heard her, so she imagined with Patterson's technology that Jane would have as well.

"Never been so glad to hear your voice!" He wouldn't even be afraid to admit that he'd said that later. All he wanted or needed to know was that she and the baby were okay. The rest would come out, but for now that mattered to him more than anything.

A quiet huff of laughter sounded over the speaker, he noticed Patterson in tears at the sound, "A little disoriented, Shepherd sent Roman and I on an acquisition mission after someone turned on her and tried to steal a critical piece of technology for The Plan. I was hit but I'll be ready to finish the mission tomorrow and I won't be a hindrance to the team."

Reade watched, and felt the emotional shift at her words. First everyone but Nas immediately brightened, some imagined weight lifted from their shoulders at the sound of her voice and the assurance that she'd made it. But then the weight seemed to return, even heavier than before as they listened to her assurances that she _wouldn't affect the mission_. As if that were the thing that they cared about- and to be honest how could any of them fault her? Only Patterson -and very recently himself- had given her any indication that she mattered outside of her official capacity. Dear god, she said she'd been hit- Jane wouldn't have bothered mentioning an errant punch, that meant she'd taken a _bullet_ and she didn't even bother giving the details.

She honestly believed they wanted her dead. What other explanation was there?

"We don't care about the mission Jane, we were worried about you," Kurt replied, a look Reade had never seen him make splayed across his face. Almost as if having to say the words hurt him, but not for their sake but because they had to be said at all.

Silence hung in the air for a few moments, and her voice was both guarded and baffled, like this was some trick she hadn't quite figured out yet. "Why? Did you think I'd run away?"

Again, pain hit the group, this time Reade spoke up, "No Jane, we thought the CIA had taken you back or someone you'd run into before might have taken you. You didn't check in before you left, and we weren't sure what had happened."

"The mission came up so quickly, and everyone was busy with the shower. I didn't think I'd be gone long enough to cause anyone to worry. But that doesn't matter, I'm okay, and I have news. Big news."

Before anyone could respond Nas opened her mouth, "Big news? Perhaps that you've been hiding your pregnancy from us all? If I were the one in charge when you got back you'd be in cuffs, withholding that information put this whole mission in danger."

She looked like she was about to say more, and from the silence on the phone Jane had no idea what to say, though he (and he was certain at least Patterson as well) could hear tiny, muffled gasping, the sound of fear-induced hyperventilation. So, he jumped in, fists tightening as he stopped himself from strangling the woman, "Jane, Patterson and I have known, I found out a few weeks ago. It should have been your secret to tell or not to tell, but when you went missing we had to search your apartment-"

"And I am in charge here, and I promise you Jane- _no handcuffs await you here_. We shouldn't have allowed you to embark on suicide mission after suicide mission, we shouldn't have punished you. You had no reason to trust us, but I hope you can trust us now. We won't endanger you or your child again, and we will get justice for you. Just get back here safe," Kurt stopped, and Reade couldn't help but stare. He wasn't sure if he'd ever heard Kurt speak so much in one go before in his life.

Again, silence greeted them for a few seconds before her voice sounded again, "I didn't want you all to find out this way," she paused again, "In fact I didn't mean for you to find out at all." That seemed to slip out unintentionally.

"But, that doesn't matter right now. Nas, for once in her life is right. Shepherd finally brought me in on the plan. Tomorrow it all goes down, and I'm going to need you all focused. Roman and I are going to infiltrate from the inside, but we need you all ready and waiting outside to help us stop this. Sandstorm has used their moles to place bombs inside of numerous power generators. They also have built missiles, which they plan to use on Congress and three other hubs of power and information in the country. I have a plan to handle that, and to get rid of the majority of Sandstorm's active members at the base. But I need you guys to handle the bombs and to provide support at the base."

"Why should we trust you? And what were you thinking bringing Roman into this? How can we believe any of this now?" The more Nas opened her mouth, the more Reade's grip on his temper slipped away.

But before he could say anything Jane's voice came back with a hard, venomous edge. "You don't have a choice, _Nas_. This is happening, and if you want to stop it you'll look at the information currently being sent to Patterson. You know what's at stake and if we don't stop this, hundreds if not more will die. That'll be on you, not me."

Then the phone call ended, and all of them were left standing around. Even as Patterson's computer pinged indicating that she'd just received something. He wanted to yell at Nas, and from the looks of everyone he wasn't the only one. But Jane had been right, there were lives at stake and they needed to focus.

Tomorrow would be the day and they had a lot to do before then.

Patterson broke the ice, "Look guys, personal feelings aside," she glared unabashedly at Nas, "Our-I mean her plan, is coming together and we have the information we need. We need to get ready with man power and have Bomb Squad ready to dismantle explosives in numerous locations."

Kurt nodded and seemed to come back to himself. All of them coming alive now that they had something to focus on that they had a hope of accomplishing.

Suddenly Reade felt that everything just might be okay.


End file.
